i LI BRARY O F CONGRKSS. t 



JUNITED STATES OF AMKRICA.J 






V 



THE 



RESUERECTION 



OB" THE 



DEAD. 






'^^fyU5\^^ 



BY 



Eev. GEORGE S.'MOTT, 

Author of " The Prodigdt, Son." 



N. TIBBALS, 3T PABK ROW. 
1866. 

V 



■1 %n\ 



CONTENTS. 



Preface 5 

Chapter I. The Human Bodj 9 

" 11. An Immortal Body 29 

" III. Resurrection of Jesus Christ 51 

" IV. The Resurrection of the Dead the Result 

of Christ's Resurrection 71 

" V. Philosophical Objections to a Resurrec- 
tion 100 

" YI. Nature of the Resurrection-Body 120 

" Yll. Circumstances of the Resurrection 156 

* * VIII. Lessons of the Resurrection 181 

" IX. Care of the Dead— Cemeteries 206 



PREFACE. 



The Eesurrection of the Dead is a doctrine whicli tas 
too much fallen out of notice. Certainly it has not that 
prominence in preaching, nor in religious literature, which 
its importance demands. Nor does it receive the atten- 
tion which the Holy Spirit bestows upon it in the Epistles 
of Paul. There it is made a cardinal doctrine of our 
faith, and so associated with Christ's resurrection, that if 
we deny the resurrection of the dead, we necessarily ignore 
Christ's resurrection. And the conclusion drawn is that 
our sins remain unforgiven. With a terseness of logic 
that is unsurpassed by the schoolmen, Paul states the 
whole question : " If there be no resurrection of the dead, 
then is Christ not risen. And if Christ be not raised, 
your faith is vain ; ye are yet in your sins." 

If man be a creature of soul and body, ought not the 
future of his body engage our thoughts, as well as the 
future of his soul ? The full and complete immortality of 
man comprises both natures. The immortality " brought 
to Ught " by our Lord is not alone the future existence of 
the soul, but likewise the future existence of the body. 
Our Saviour redeems each by his own precious blood. The 
whole man was purchased — the body from the decay of 
the grave, and the soul from the corruption of sin. If, 
then, our thoughts glow with rapture at the anticipation 
of happiness beyond the pilgrimage of this life, why ex- 
5 



6 PREFACE. 

elude the body from its share, and restrict onr hopes to tlie 
soul ? Indeed, no small measure of that future bliss will 
be associated with the body, and will be inherent in it. 
For man does not attain the highest degrees of heavenly 
fehcity, until the resurrection has reinvested him with%a^ 
tabernacle, " the building of God, a house not made with 
hands, eternal in the heavens ;" until he is " clothed upon 
with our house which is from heaven." 

The resurrection of the dead is one of the recondite 
revelations of the Scriptures. But, for that reason, we are 
not debarred a proper investigation of the doctrine. It is 
revealed that we may seek an understanding of it, so far 
as man's feeble intellect may try itself on the deep things 
of God. ^' If it be true that human nature, in its present 
form, is only the rudiment of a more extended and desira- 
ble mode of existence, we can hardly do otherwise than 
assume that the future being must lie so involved in our 
present constitution as to be discernible therein, and that 
a careful examination of this structure, both bodily and 
mental, with a view to the supposed reconstruction of the 
whole, will furnish some means of conjecturing what that 
future life v/ill be, at least as to its principal elements. It 
remains, then, to be seen whether something of this sort 
may not actually be effected ; and in attempting it we are 
not left totally at large, or without hints of the path we 
should attempt ; for if the inspired writings be always 
listened to where they give any distinct testimony, and are 
narrowly scrutinized also in every instance of a casual al- 
lusion to facts not explicitly revealed, they furnish a guid- 
ance such as may save endless wanderings in a false direc- 
tion. Nevertheless, in using this guidance, the conditions 
that belong to it should be borne in mind, lest we should 



PREFACE. 7 

be led astray by taking it for what it is not." *' On the 
path we are about to pursue, no practical evil can arise so 
long as we carefully abstain from the error of confounding 
the deductions of reason with the testimony of the in- 
spired writers, nor ever allow any part of the authority, 
or of the serious and sacred import that attach to the lat- 
ter, to be extended to the former. To intrude into things 
not seen, under the influence of a ' fleshly mind/ is a grave 
fault, and especially so if, on the strength of the most rea- 
sonable theory, we are led to bring into question a particle 
of that which the text of Scripture, duly interpreted, re- 
quires us to believe. Yet there is a path, as I humbly 
think, which runs clear of both the errors above mentioned, 
and in following it awhile, as I propose to do, I shall en- 
deavor to discard the gay dreams of the fancy, fraught 
with the images of earth, and shall hold everything hght 
which countervails, or which will not readily consist with, 
the sure words of Christ and his Apostles."* Such a path 
the author of this book has endeavored to pursue. Except 
in one chapter, I have not gone into a philosophical dis- 
cussion of questions associated with this truth, and arising 
out of the properties of matter. For my design is simply 
to present that view of the resurrection which may be 
obtained from combining and arranging the different state- 
ments which are found scattered throughout the New 
Testament. This volume is designed as a popular treatise. 
It is not written for theologians, but for intelligent Chris- 
tian readers, whose minds may need instruction on this 
much neglected subject. 

The author rejoices that recently some attention has 

♦ Taylor's Physical Theory of Another Life, pp. 10 and 11. 



8 PREFACE. 

been directed to this great doctrine of Christianity — the 
resurrection of the dead. Several works on this subject 
have been published since the plan of this vohime was 
formed, and most of the materials gathered. But none of 
them interfere with the field of the present treatise. They 
are devoted mainly to a discussion of the immortality of 
the soul, while the resurrection of the body is brought in 
as an appendage. The author is not aware of a publica- 
tion which fills the vacuum which he has attempted to 
occupy by the present effort. He is painfully conscious of 
the imperfections of these chapters ; but if this attempt 
shall stimulate or provoke more competent minds to un- 
dertake what, to the writer, has been a most pleasurable 
task, the mission of this volume will be accc^mplished. 

G. S. M. 
Newton, N. J., April, 1866. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE HUJMAN BODY. 

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and 
"breathed into Ms nostrils the breath of life ; and man became a liv- 
ing soul.— Gen. ii. 7. 

** Tell, if ye know how came I thus ; how here. 
Not of myself ; by some great Maker, then, 
In goodness and in power pre-eminent." 

We believe that the human race had its 
origin in Adam and Eve. We also believe 
that all things had a beginning. Whence, then, 
did the progenitors of men have their origin ? 
How did their bodies begin to be ? The only 
satisfactory account, which has stood the test 
of time, discovery, and research, is the record 
in the opening chapters of Genesis. 

However trustworthy this history may be 
to the Christian, the infidel has dealt ponder- 
ous blows upon it, if possible, to destroy its 
testimony as j:o the origin of the human race. 
A few years ago the Development Theory, as 
it was called, rose up, boasting itself to be 

somewhat, and to which a number of men 
1* 



10 RESUERECTION OF THE DEAD. 

joined themselves. This system and its sat- 
ellites were the pride of disbelievers, and 
claimed to annul the authority of the entire 
Scriptures. It caused many a champion of 
the Gospel to pause a moment, for it was 
framed with much art, and great show of 
science. But the sensation was of short du- 
ration. For true philosophy soon pointed out 
its absurdities. 

The theory briefly is, that the first man was 
the last of a long series of developments, which 
began with the very lowest and feeblest germ 
of life. Water contains the weakest form of 
animate being. Here man's lineal descent be- 
gan, and thence upward through fishes, frogs, 
four-footed beasts, and monkeys, and orang- 
outangs, nature worked its way, until, at last, 
the body of man in its present condition is 
the product. By a similar gradual process, 
from the faintest glimmer of instinct, the mind 
of man was constituted. Although this the- 
ory, as originally presented, has few adherents, 
yet various modifications of it are advocated 
by men of science, who discard the Scriptures. 

It is not necessary in this day to mention 
physiological objections. And yet two argu- 



THE HUMAN BODY. 11 

ments against such a process, appealing to 
common sense, may be left by the way. 

1. If this kind of development be a law of 
nature, how is it that nature has now ceased to 
obey that laiv ? Why are there not specimens, 
in these times, of this progressive advance in 
the same species, from lower to higher grades 
of life? On the continent of Africa, where 
this pretended development has reached its 
highest point in the Gorilla — nearest of all 
brutes to man — how is it that nothing nearer 
to man than this brute has ever been dis- 
covered ? 

Again, if physical progress he the law of hu- 
manity^ why has not man improved ? Why has 
not the pressure of this law carried the Hotten- 
tot to a tolerable degree of physical perfec- 
tion, if not of civilization ? Is it not rather a 
rule that the degraded remain such, or only 
sink to lower depths of deterioration ? There 
is no self-recuperative power in fallen human 
nature. Indeed, is there in any kind of life, 
vegetable or animal ? Fruits and grain, with- 
out the assiduous cultivation of man, decline 
in quality. Let wheat be self-sown, and un- 
tilled, and speedily it becomes again the wild 



12 KESUERECTION OF THE DEAD. 

grass of Thibet, Our domestic animals have 
not made themselves what they are. Mmi^s 
training and skill in their breeding has ele- 
vated them to their present standard of excel- 
lence. The Esquimaux and Hottentot are no 
farther advanced as a race than they were 
when first known to history. No ! the teach- 
ing of history is rather that men grow worse 
when left to themselves, — become dwarfed in 
iDtellect, and deteriorated in body. Seeds of 
vice are inherent in his heart, which sap the 
powers of his soul and the vigor of animal 
life. Have the inhabitants of Egypt retained 
their wisdom and their arts, or their physical 
beauty ? Are the plains of Babylon any 
longer the home of the Astronomer and the 
acute Chaldee ? Ah, no ! wisdom flows not in 
the blood, nor is it indigenous to any clime. 
It springs and grows and blooms most rich- 
ly where is "the fear of the Lord, and the 
knowledge of the Holy. " 

It is well to know that a theory so contrary 
to Scripture and experience is also discarded 
by the most eminent naturalists. Professor 
Pictet says, ^' The theory of the transformation 
of species appears to us entirely inadmissible, 



THE HUMAN BODY. 13 

and diametrically opposed to all the teachings 
of zoology and physiology." Agassiz declares, 
" It cannot be denied that the species of dif- 
ferent successive periods are supposed by 
some naturalists to derive their distinguishing 
features from changes which have taken place 
in those of preceding ages ; but this is a mere 
supposition, supported neither by physiologi- 
cal nor geological evidence. On the contrary, 
it is known that the evidence furnished by the 
Egyptian monuments, and by the most care- 
ful comparison betv^een animals found in the 
tombs of Egypt with the living specimens of 
the same species obtained in the same coun- 
try, that there is not the shadow of a differ- 
ence between them for a period of about five 
thousand years. Geology only shows that at 
different periods there have existed different 
species ; but no transition from those of a pre- 
ceding into those of the following epoch has 
ever been noticed anywhere." Says the same 
eminent naturalist, ''All these beings (animal) 
do not exist in consequence of the continued 
agency of physical causes, but have made their 
successive appearance upon the earth by the 
immediate intervention of the Creator." 



14 RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

Turning now from human speculation, let 
us investigate the account in Genesis, '' For 
the entrance of Thy word giveth light." 
" The testimony of the Lord is sure, making 
wise the simple." The words describing the 
creation of man's body impress us w^ith the 
idea that more than mere bones, flesh and mus- 
cle were then made. " The Lord God formed 
man of the dust of the ground," and then 
" breathed into his nostrils the breath of life." 
That is, the formation of the human body was 
by immediate divine agency. The words are 
not the same as those which describe the other 
acts of creation. Of those the formula is, 
'' And Grod said let there be." A word of 
command sufficed. " Let there be light." 
" Let the earth bring forth." You notice God 
did not say " Let there be a body for man," If 
the body of man is to be regarded as a mere 
animal structure, why did it not have an ori- 
gin in a way similar to other animals ? When 
the earth was bringing forth living creatures, 
each after his kind, cattle and creeping things, 
why did not man's body also come with these ? 
If that body be as some philosophers, even in 
these days, pretend, only the climax of a de- 



THE HUMAN BODY. 15 

velopment which had been going on for ages, 
why was not a body abeady furnished for God 
to put the living soul into it ? Does not such 
a supposition clash with this first sentence of 
Holy Writ, which introduces man upon the 
earth ? We are taught by this statement that 
the creation of man's body was by a direct 
act. It was moulded out of clay by Godhim- 
self. The Deity personally engages in the 
formation of the human body. And thus was 
there a closer contact between the Creator 
and man, than between the Creator and aught 
else on earth which He made. 

It will be observed again, that a new term 
is employed as God proposes to create man. 
" Let us make man." Hitherto the phrase is, 
" God said," and God made ; but now it is, Let 
us make, " in our image and after o^^r likeness." 
It is generally agreed that the Trinity — Father, 
Son, and Holy Ghost — is designated by the 
terms us and ours. This opens an exalted train 
of thought, which even the most gifted mind 
cannot exhaust. We know that in the work 
of redemption, the whole triune nature of Je- 
hovah is actively engaged. The Father loves 
man, and sends the Son to redeem him. The 



16 RESURKECTION OF THE DEAD. 

Son comes and redeems, while the Holy Ghost 
applies the Father's love, and the Son's atone- 
ment, and thus himself renews and sanctifies 
the heart. But in the beginning, ere man had 
an existence, we find these same persons of 
the Godhead — hitherto undisclosed — coming 
forth to work together in the creation of man. 
Well may we pause and exclaim, '' What is 
man that God should be mindful of him" in 
such a way, take so great an interest in him, 
as to be unwilling to commit to a Gabriel the 
creation of his flesh ? The glorious Three in 
One stoops to the task ! How deep was 
God's love to man ! It began before his fall. 
It began before he was created. 

And we must further note that this man 
was to he a rejiection or image of God. " Let 
us make man in our image, after our liJcenessy 
Unquestionably this strictly refers to the soul 
of man as created in " knowledge, righteous- 
ness and holiness." But this soul must have 
a body suited to its dignity. We would not 
put the Kohinoor diamond in a pine box ; its 
value demands a suitable casket. We would 
not lodge a king in a hovel, nor in small and 
uncomfortable apartments ; he must have a 



THE HUMAN BODY. 17 

palace. Nor would the body of any animal 
as yet constructed be fit for man's soul. So 
God wrought a structure*' fearfully and won- 
derfully made," replete with evidences of di- 
vine wisdom and goodness. And Adam, as he 
stood upright, perfect in body and stainless 
in heart, reflected his Maker's glory; and 
was as much like God as a human being 
could be. 

And thus we reach the conclusion that the 
body of man, as originally created, was far no- 
bler and more exellent than the body we now 
have. There has been physical deterioration. 
Sin cursed the serpent, the earth, and man 
himself. That curse reduced the sei-pent to 
the most loathsome and hated of living things. 
That curse sowed the earth with thorns and 
thistles, and permits man to get his bread from 
it only by sweat. And can we suppose this 
curse did not touch man's body ? While it 
blunted every sensibility of his soul, and fouled 
every aspiration of his heart, and weakened 
every power of his intellect, did it leave his 
body unaffected — as pure and noble as ever ? 
No ! none of us sees a sound man, for we all 
suffer physically from the blight of sin. We 



18 RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

are diseased in body, and our faculties are en- 
feebled. The word in Hebrew for man is 
Enosli, which signifies wretched, sick. This 
is God's descriptive term for man in his pres- 
ent state. He is sick. "The w^hole head is 
sick, and the whole heart faint. From the 
sole of the foot even nnto the head there is no 
soundness in it." The body is in a state or 
condition of death, i. e., it is on its way to 
death, even as the soul is described as spirit- 
ually dead.'^ How much nobler and more 
exalted the body of Adam was than ours now 
is, it is impossible to know. But its creation 
certainly warrants the belief that it was more 
than a mere organism for eating, sleeping and 
acting. It subserved higher purposes. It 
was precisely adapted to the perfect spiritual 
nature of Adam — to his sinless soul. It was 
not an ill-fittrng garment, nor a cumbersome 
vehicle for the soul to travel in. It was a fit 
companion for a spirit, which itself could as- 
sociate with angels ; and did converse with 
" the voice of God walking in the garden in 
the wind of the day." 

* A favorite expression with Augustine in Civitate Dei. 



THE HUMAN BODY. 19 

Before the creation of man, or even of the 
world, an order of beings existed denominat- 
ed angels. We know nothing in regard to 
their creation, and but little more regarding 
the mode of their existence. So far as we can 
learn they are ^^^embodied spirits. When 
they appeared on earth, they assumed a visible 
form. Sometimes this was etherial, so that 
they vanished from sight while the beholder 
was gazing upon them. On other occasions 
they were invested with a human body, as in 
the case of the angels who came to Lot's house. 
But there is nothing to Vvarrant us in suppos- 
ing that these were any other than shapes as- 
sumed for those occasions, and laid aside when 
the errand was accomplished. We may, there- 
fore, designate angels to be spirits without 
bodies. 

And thus we conclude that there are^ within 
the field of our knowledge, three orders of 
creatures. The lowest is the brute, or purely 
animal, whose entire existence is in a body, 
and which does not survive that body. Their 
home is the air, land, and water. They are 
simply and solely of this earth. Another, and 
perhaps the highest order, is the angelic, i. c. 



20 RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

the jpurely spiritual^ whose whole existence is 
without a body. They are immortal, and their 
home is heaven and hell. There would seem 
to be various grades among these, as we know 
there are in the animal kingdom. For we 
read of angels, and archangels, seraphs and 
cherubim. And a few are mentioned by name, 
as Gabriel and Michael, as though they were 
superior to these other. 

Intermediate h man's place. He is a crea- 
ture combining body and soul, the animal and 
the spiritual, the brute and the angel. He is 
affiliated to the animals about him. For his 
body, like theirs, is composed of flesh and blood 
and bones. Its anatomy and organs are simi- 
lar. Like theirs it is susceptible to heat and 
cold, to hunger and thirst. Like theirs it 
writhes with pain, or is thrilled by joyous 
sensations. Man also fraternizes with angels. 
He has intellect and affections. He can rea- 
son, remember, will and think. He can love, 
hate, rejoice and sorrow. Indeed, this dual 
nature of man is recognized in our common 
speech. For when one becomes purer, love- 
lier, and practices more virtues than those 
around her, we say she is angelic ; and when 



THE HUMAN BODY. 21 

one yields to his fleshly or animal appetites, we 
call him brutish. , 

God arranged this combined spirit and body 
for man's welfare and happiness. They were 
made to work harmoniously. But the first 
transgression disorganized and disconnected 
the reciprocal action. Yet, as originally 
created, they moved as harmoniously as the 
spheres. The body was a perfect machine, 
instinct with action only as propelled by the 
spirit. It was like Achilles' sword, which 
seemed to be but a part of his hand. The 
soul makes the acquaintance of the nniverse 
through the body. And in the framework of 
clay it reveals itself, and tells the world what 
manner of spirit it is. Without this spirit the 
body w^ould be a helpless and useless organ- 
ism. 

Man's position in creation and his consti- 
tution teach us, therefore, that he forms a class 
by himself; not distinctively body, nor dis- 
tinctively spirit, but loth. His soul is not 
quenched with the death of his body, as are 
the brutes ; and his body does not disappear 
forever and his soul alone exist hereafter with- 
out the body, as do the angels. Hence, as the 



22 RESURRECTIO:^ OF THE DEAD. 

brute is an order in the universe distinct and 
separate ; and as the angel is another and dif- 
ferent order ; so is man, sui generis — of his own 
kind. 

And now, as confirmatory of this view, we 
discover a separate sphere of action, and a 
separate place assigned to man, which require 
a creature of soul and body to meet their de- 
mands. He was at once appointed to be the 
head and lord of this earth. He was made 
God's vicegerent on this globe. *'And God 
said, let us make man in our image, after our 
likeness ; and let them have dominion over 
the fish of the sea, and over the fow4 of the 
air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, 
and over every creeping thing that creepeth 
upon the earth. * * And God said, behold, I 
have given you every herb bearing seed, 
which is upon the face of all the earth, and 
every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree 
yielding seed ; to you it shall be for meat." 
Spirits were not put in subjection under him, 
but all the animal and vegetable kingdoms 
were. And the discoveries of each generation 
prove how fully God has subordinated all ter- 
restrial things to man's use. The very ele- 



THE HUMAN BODY. 23 

ments stand obedient to his commands. 
Water becomes his tireless drudge, relieving 
him, through the agency of steam, of a vast 
amount of toil. He makes the lightning his 
voice. With greater skill than the old fire- 
god Vulcan, he tames the fierce flame, and 
makes it lick up dross ; and then it trans- 
mutes for his service the hardest metals into the 
implements of industry. Lord of the ocean, 
more than was Neptune, he launches his 
storm-defying ship, and calmly passes over the 
watery waste, making the north star his 
friendly watcher, and drawing from the pole 
that subtle magnet which reveals his haven. 
He bores a road for his iron-horse through 
mountains, and digs down his wells until they 
tap the fountains of the great deep. When 
the forests are failing before his Behemoth of 
fire, God shows him how to burn stones. 
When the ocean has become depopulated of 
the whale, God uncovers to him an ample 
treasury of oil, in the very soil upon which 
he treads. Witnessing these and similar to- 
kens of man's primitive nobility as head of 
terrene creation, well may we break forth in 
the words of the Psalmist, as his mind glowed 



24 EESUEEECTION OF THE BODY. 

wtih this meditation, " Thou hast made him 
a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned 
him with glory and honor. Thou madest him 
to have dominion over the works of thy 
hands ; thou hast put all things under his feet ; 
all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the 
field, the fowl of the air, and the fish of the 
sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths 
of the sea." 

As we catch a glimpse of heaven, and 
there behold man in his restored likeness to 
God, we infer that he has a position distinct 
from the angelic host. In the vision of the 
fourth and fifth chapters of Eevelation, we 
read of a throne, and one sitting thereon, em- 
blematic of Jehovah ; next to the throne are 
four living creatures ; and then are four and 
twenty elders, symbolical of the church, the 
ransomed children of men ; and after these 
are the angels. On this Bengel remarks : 
'' The many angels make a circle ; this circle 
surrounds the throne and the beasts and the 
elders. The holy beasts (living creatures) are 
like a part of the throne itself, although they 
are no carved inanimate figures, but living. 
The elders, however, are nearer the throne 



THE HUMAN BODY. 25 

than the angels. It is a question, on ac- 
count of the comparison between angels 
and men, which form of the two orders 
of creation is the more excellent in its nature. 
The angels, because they are spirits, so far 
agree more with the nature of God than 
ours. But because the Son of God has be- 
come man, men also have an honor which the 
angels have not ; and one might almost say that 
an angel might wish to be a man, so that he 
might be like the Son of God in his human- 
ity. There can be no doubt, then, that there 
is somewhat of man nearer to God than the 
angels." We have the same thought embodied 
in the familiar hymn : 

Not angels round the throne 

Of Majesty above, 
Are half so much obliged as we 

To our Immanuel's love. 

They never sunk so low, 

They are not raised so high ; 

They never knew such depths of woe, 
Such heights of majesty. 

The Saviour did not join 

Their nature to His own ; 
For them He shed no blood divine, 

Nor breath'd a single groan. 
2 



26 RESUEEECTION OF THE DEAD. 

Well may we say with Clement : '' Man is 
the most beautiful hymn to the praise of the 
Deity." 

This view of the intrinsic excellence of the 
human body finds a strong confirmation in the 
manner in which that body is spoken of in 
the New Testament. The argument in the 
fifteenth chapter of 1st Corinthians proceeds 
on the assumption that the body, as w^ell 
as the soul, is indispensable to the perfect 
state of humanity. The Bible regards the 
body as so important a part of man that the 
phrase " all flesh " is used to designate the 
human race. No disparaging term is applied 
to it. Not one of those epithets, wdth which 
ascetics were wont to stigmatize the body, ap- 
pears on the Sacred Pages. Under the influ- 
ence of Eastern mysticism, which regarded all 
sin as lodged in matter, the body was held, 
not as a part of man's better nature, and the 
nursing mother of the mind, but as the spring 
and author of evil, and therefore to be macer- 
ated and subdued. It could not by these 
Anchorites be treated with too much severity ; 
but nowhere is the body condemned in Scrip- 
ture as the seat and source of all vileness. 



THE HUMAN BODY. 27 

Ah ! how our Saviour vindicates this handi- 
work of His own creating from all such as- 
persions of heathen philosophy, when he de- 
clares, that " out of the heart proceed evil 
thoughts, adulteries, murders, thefts," and the 
like. And what a care, too, Jesus had to re- 
instate the body in its pristine beauty ! He 
straightened its crookedness, unhmbered its 
stiffened joints, restored its organs to sight, 
hearing and speech, staunched its issues, and 
snatched it many times from the grave. 

Can we, then, avoid the conclusion that 
God designed man to be a distinct order of 
the animate world, unlike the brute and un- 
like the angel — distinguished from every other 
creature in having a soul united with a body ? 
And thus, body and soul, he is to continue 
forever. Is this a mystery? We admit it. 
Yet, how it should enlarge and elevate our 
conceptions of the worth, and dignity, and 
majesty of man ! 

*'How poor, how ricli, how abject, how august, 
How complete, how wonderful is man ! 
How passing wonder He who made him such I 
Who centered in our make such strange extremes, 
From different natures marvellously mixed, 
Conversion exquisite of distant worlds I 



28 EESUERECTION OF THE DEAD. 

Distinguished link in being's endless chain ! 
Midway from nothing to the Deity ! 
A beam etherial, sullied and absorpt ! 
Though sullied and dishonored, still divine ! 
Dim miniature of greatness absolute ! 
An heir of glory, a frail child of dust ! 
Helpless immortal ! insect infinite I 
A worm ! a god ! — I tremble at myself. 
And in myself am lost. At home a stranger, 
Thought wanders up and down, surprised, aghast, 
And wondering at her own. How reason reels I 
O what a miracle to man is man ! 

YOUNQ. 



CHAPTER IL 



AN IMMORTAL BODY. 

Thougli after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh 
shall I see God ; whom 1 shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall 
behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within 
me.— Job xix. 26, 27. 

** Graves are but beds, where flesh till morning sleeps, 
Or chests, where God awhile our garments keeps." 

It is a most important question whether 
we shall live in a future state. *' When a man 
dies shall he live again ? " '' Man wasteth 
away, and where is he ?" Is there any differ- 
ence in the death of a man and of a brute ? The 
same Divine Book which enlightens as to 
man's creation, gives us the only reliable in- 
formation as to man's state after death. Here 
the Word of God is as a '' light shining in a 
dark place." 

Grlimmerings of this light pervaded the gloom 
of antiquity, for the immortality of the soul 
was generally admitted among the ancients. 
Lactantius speaks of Democritus and Epicurus 
as " having run mad almost alone among men 
29 



30 RESURHECTION OF THE DEAD. 

denying the immortality of the soul." And 
Socrates expresses his hope almost with the 
unction of Job : " I know, I feel that I shall 
live after death — that I shall meet better men 
in that other state than I have associated with 
here, and that I shall still have a kind and 
provident God to care for me." The same 
doctrine is interwoven throughout the poetry 
of Greece and Rome. It is found in the re- 
ligion of the ancient Egyptians and Hindoos. 
V' All the Galatians and Thracians, and most of 
the barbarous tribes, taaght their children to 
believe that the soul does not perish, but con- 
tinues after death ; wherefore they should not 
fear death, but boldly meet every danger."* 
Such, also, was the faith of the Scythians, Celts, 
German tribes, and all the barbarous nations 
of past days. The missionary now encounters 
the idea of immortality entangled with various 
absurdities in Burmah, in Persia, India, China, 
and elsewhere in heathendom. The Plindoo 
widow lays herself on the funersl pile of her 
husband, and is consumed to ashes with his 
body, in the belief that she is to share his so- 

* Jamblicus. 



AN IMMORTAL BODY. 31 

ciety in another state. The North American 
Indian buries tlie warrior's hatchet with the 
body, that he may have it ready for use in 
the lands of the Great Spirit. 

And yet the doctrine was enshrouded in 
gloom, even where it was not doubted, as it 
was by many of the learned. How they groped 
in the dark is forcibly evident in the dying 
utterance of the Emperor Hadrian : '^ O my 
poor wandering soul ! Alas ! whither art thou 
going ? Where must thou lodge this night ? 
Thou shalt never jest any more, never be 
merry any more ! ' ' The uncertainty which op- 
pressed such men all their lives is painfully 
expressed in the last words of an ancient phi- 
losopher : " Mysteriously I came, anxiously 
have I lived, perturbed I depart. Cause of 
Causes, pity me !" 

" 'Tis true, 'tis certain, man, thougli dead, retains 
Part of himself ; the immortal mind remains." 

But does any more remain ? What becomes 
of the divinely-created body ? Here the gen- 
eral sentiment of mankind is silent. Heathen 
oracles give no response. But Jesus Christ 
has brought iminortality to light " in the Gos- 



82 EESUREECTION OF THE DEAD. 

pel." It was known before, but he brought 
immortality out into the light. He defined it, 
and removed much that was obscure and 
doubtful. He not only presented clearer views 
of immortality than before were know^n. He 
also enlarged the bounds of that immortality. 
He extended it to the whole man. He an- 
nounces in God's name : " Those that are 
in their graves shall come forth — they that 
have done good unto the resurrection of life, 
and they that have done evil unto the re- 
surrection of damnation." And this, be it 
observed. He taught at the very beginning of 
His ministry. 

On the opening page of the Scriptures we 
are informed that God ''made man out of the 
dust of the earth, and breated into his nostrils 
the breath of life." As we read on we find 
that image marred, the likeness to God almost 
obliterated, and the body consigned to the 
decay of the grave — all as the consequence of 
sin. But now, as we enter the New Testa- 
ment, a star of hope rises upon this dark 
scene — the Star of Bethlehem. And one of 
the first things which this " light " reveals is, 
that this decayed body of man shall come out 



AN IMMORTAL BODY. 33 

of that grave. It is to be restored. The body 
is not dead, but sleeping. The God who made 
it has not abandoned it because of sin. He 
gave man into Satan's hands, as He did Job, 
that He might " touch his bone and his flesh," 
but with the same restriction, " save his life." 
And thus at the outset redemption claims the 
body for its own ; and the Eedeemer declares, 
I made the body as w^ell as the soul, and I am 
come to redeem it with the soul, for man, 
spirit, soul, and body, is mine. 

The resurrection of the body is exclusively 
a doctrine of revelation. There seems to be 
none of that foreshadowing which attended 
some other doctrines of the Bible. For example, 
the doctrine of atonement, through a sacrificial 
oflering, a biblical doctrine, is also a part of 
every religion of antiquity, showing that the 
necessity of propitiation is recognized by sin- 
ful man. But there is no lingering echo, which 
would indicate that the doctrine of the resur- 
rection of the dead was known, in days so near 
to Adam, that men retained the traditional re- 
membrance of those truths which were to him 
the direct teachings of the Deity. 

There is no rite or custom of antiquity 



34 EESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

which looks towards such an idea, except it 
may be in the practice of the Egyptians in 
embalming their dead. It has been held by 
some that they believed in the resurrection of 
the body, and that no other satisfactory reason 
can be given for the great care they took of 
the body after death. 

According to Herodotus, the " Egyptians 
were the first to maintain that the soul is im- 
mortal. They believed that after death the 
soul entered the body of some other animal ; 
and when it had passed through all those of 
earth, air, and water, it again entered that of 
man, which circuit it accomplished in 3,000 
years." If the Egyptians embalmed their 
dead in the hope of the soul re-occupying the 
body, that was a different view from the reve- 
lation of Scripture, which revives the body out 
of its decayed atoms. And if this was their 
belief, they stand alone among all the heathen, 
ancient and modern. 

Two or three passages have been found in 
the writings of the ancients, which were once 
supposed to lead to the idea of a resurrection ; 
but these are now abandoned as evidence of 
any such belief. Certain it is that when Paul 



AN IMMORTAL BODY. 35 

proclaimed this, truth he was met with deri- 
sion by the wise men. At Athens they list- 
ened with respect, while he discoursed on the 
immortality of the soul ; but when he came 
to speak of a resurrection of the body, it 
seemed to them so absurd that they mocked 
at him. In an ancient dialogue Christians 
are reproached in these words : " They tell us 
that they shall be reproduced after death, and 
from the ashes of the funeral pile : and believe 
their own lies, so that you might think they 
had already revived. twofold madness ! to 
denounce destruction to the heavens and the 
stars, which we leave as we found them, but 
to promise eternity to themselves when dead 
and extinguished."^ This agrees with the 
statement of Augustine, that there wasnothhig 
in the Christian religion so vehemently op- 
posed by philosophers as the resurrection of 
the body. Lucian and Celsus employed their 
wit against the same doctrine, as taught by 
Origen and others. Pliny speaks of the doc- 
trine as impossible. 

The resurrection of the dead, therefore, is a 

* Dicks' Theology. 



36 RESUERECTION OF THE DEAD. 

subject of pure revelation. Reason does not 
even suggest it. The Sacred Scriptures must 
furnish all the information we can gather on 
this interesting and important topic. Nor is 
this useless knowledge. Let us not think, be- 
cause the subject is recondite, and relates to 
that beyond our natural life, that we may as 
well give ourselves no concern about it ; that 
it is far more needful to occupy our few hours 
with the weightier matters of faith, repent- 
ance, and holy living. To these, indeed, we 
ought to give all diligence, and yet not leave 
this without careful meditation. We should 
be taught otherwise by the fact, unnoticed by 
many readers, that the resurrection of the dead 
is a very prominent topic in the Epistles of 
Paul. He associates it with doctrine, precept, 
promise, and consolation, in almost every epis- 
tle. He meets the common objection to the 
doctrines of grace, " Let us continue in sin 
that grace may abound," by the reply, that 
as the Christian has his sin forgiven through 
the death of Jesus Christ, and in that death 
himself dies to the world, so through the re- 
surrection of Christ he receives a new nature, 
and lives unto God. " For if we have been 



AN IMMOETAL BODY. 37 

planted together in the likeness of His death, 
we shall be also in the likeness of His resur- 
rection." To the Philippians (iii. 10-11) he 
declares that one of his most earnestly sought 
attainments is, "that I may know Him, and 
the power of His resurrection, and the fellow- 
ship of His sufferings, being made conformable 
with His death, if by any means I might at- 
tain unto the resurrection of the dead." In 
Hebrews vi. 2, among '' the principles of the 
doctrine of Christ^^'' which every babe in Christ 
was supposed to know, he mentions " the re- 
surrection of the dead." It is much to be re- 
gretted that the consideration of this Article 
of the Creed has been so much neglected. 
This doctrine occupied the minds of primitive 
Christians to a very large degree. Whenever 
they met on the Sabbath morning the saluta- 
tion was, " Christ is risen to-day." And fre- 
quently, at other times, they saluted each 
other with a Xpidro^ dvs dr?/-— Christ is risen. 
Philip Henry's common salutation to his family 
or friends on the Lord's day morning was, 
" the Lord is risen, He is risen indeed;" and 
he made it his chief business on that day to 
celebrate the memory of Christ's resurrec- 



38 RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

tion. Consider, also, where Paul puts this doc- 
trine : '' If the dead rise not, then is not Christ 
raised ; and if Christ be not raised, your faith 
is vain ; ye are yet in your sins. Then they 
also which are fallen asleep in Christ are 
perished."* Our hope of salvation rests on 
this. It is one of the pillars of our faith. 
Ought we not to know well the foundation 
upon which rests this hope in the resurrec- 
tion of the dead ? 

This was a new doctrine to the Gentiles ; 
but w^ere the Jews acquainted with it ? To 
them were committed the oracles of God. Had 
those oracles revealed a resurrection of the 
body ? What says the Old Testament ? A 
number of passages have been adduced, which, 
though to our minds very suggestive of this 
resurrection, cannot in fairness of interpreta- 
tion be said to teach it. Two proof texts have 
been brought forward, each of which has been 
contested as valid evidence. One is in Isaiah 
xxvi. 19:" Thy dead men shall live, together 
with my dead body shall they arise. Awake 

* 1 Cor. XV. 16, 17, 18, 



AN IMMOETAL BODY. 39 

and sing, ye that dwell in the dust ; for thy 
dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall 
cast out the dead." While these words in 
themselves plainly teach a resurrection, yet 
the context seems decidedly to require a figu- 
rative exposition, viz., '' that God would raise 
His people from the dust of degradation and 
oppression, where they had long seemed dead, 
though, only sleeping.'^* And yet this very 
allusion to a resurrection of the dead body, 
furnishes a strong evidence that a belief in it 
was current in the days of Isaiah. Job com- 
forts himself, at the close of his most piteous 
lament in the nineteenth, chapter, with these 
words, " for I know that my Redeemer liveth, 
and that He shall stand at the latter day upon 
the earth ; and though after my skin worms 
destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see 
God, whom I shall see for myself, and mine 
eyes shall behold, and not another, though 
my reins be consumed within me." 

Few passages in the Bible have excited 
more attention than this, and in respect to it 
expositors have been divided in opinion. 

* Alexander on Isaiah. 



40 EESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

Some consider that it has no reference what- 
ever to a final resurrection of the dead. But 
most of the Fathers, and a large portion of 
modern critics, suppose that it does refer to 
such a resurrection. This was the opinion of 
the translators of our version of the Scrip- 
tures; and so it is received by the united 
body of plain, sober-minded, thoughtful Chris- 
tians. Indeed, no one can read these stirring 
words, unbiassed by theory or prejudice, and 
not find the resurrection of the body in them. 
But, in Daniel xii. 2, such a resurrection is 
clearly announced. '' Many of them that 
sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake," 
or, more strictly, "those that lie asleep under 
the earth shall awake, some to overlasting life, 
and some to shame and everlasting contempt." 
Whether the idea was obtained from these, 
and perhaps other texts, or was made known 
more plainly by the religious teachers who 
followed Malachi, one thing is certain, this 
doctrine was held by the Jews when Christ ap- 
peared. In preaching the resurrection. He 
did not proclaim an unheard-of doctrine. In 
the apochryphal book of 2 Maccabees, the 
Jewish martyrs express the hope of a coming 



AN IMMORTAL BODY. 41 

resurrection. At the time when the Jews 
came under the Grecian domination, this doc- 
trine was most intimately connected with that 
of future retribution. And among the later 
Jewish and earlier Christian writers, no dis- 
tinction was made between the immortality 
of the soul and the resurrection of the body. 
By these Jews the rewards and enjoyments 
of the blessed hereafter, were associated with 
gross corporeal pleasures. They held that 
men would eat, drink, sleep, and do much 
the same as on earth. Theirs w^as a heaven 
of the spiritualists — a sort of Mahommedan 
paradise. For this, therefore, a body was 
necessary. These were the notions which 
brought out the sarcasms of the Sadducees, 
who rejected the doctrine. To make sport 
of these fancies was their object, when they 
propounded to our Lord the case of the 
woman Vv^ho married seven brothers. The 
Pharisees, who constituted the religious teach- 
ers of the people, maintained the resurrection. 
Hence, when Paul avowed his belief in it 
before the Sanhedrin, he met with the appro- 
bation of that party. It was only his associa- 
tion of the resurrection with Christ crucified 



42 RESUERECTION OF TKE 3>EA]). 

which stirred their indignation. Martha's 
reply at the tomb of her brother furnishes the 
strongest proof that this behef was comj-non 
among the godly. " Jesus saith unto her, 
thy brother shall live again. Martha saith 
unto Him, I hiow that he shall rise again in 
the resurrection at the last day." 

And since those times there have been Jews 
who have inclined to the faith of the Sad- 
ducees ; but the greater part of Israel, accord- 
ing to the flesh, have held firmly to a resur- 
rection of the dead. It is an article in their 
creed. " A curious opinion of the Jews is, 
that wherever their bodies may be buried, it 
is only in their own promised land that the 
resurrection can take place ; and, therefore, 
they who are interred in any other part of 
the world must make their way to Palestine 
under ground ; and this will be an opera- 
tion of dreadful toil and pain, although 
clefts and caverns will be opened for them by 
the Almighty. Hence, many Jews direct 
that their remains be sent there. ' We were 
fraughted with wool,' says an old traveler 
from Constantinople to Sidon, ^in which 
sacks, as was most certainly told to me, were 



AN IMMORTAL BODY. 43 

many Jews' bones put into little chests, but 
unknown to any of the ship. The Jews, our 
merchants, told me of them at my return 
from Jerusalem to Japhet, but earnestly en- 
treated me not to tell it, for fear of prevent- 
ing them another time.' Sometimes a wealthy 
Jev/ has been known to import earth from 
Jerusalem wherewith to line his grave."* 

But there cannot be the shadow of a doubt 
when we turn to the New Testament. No- 
thing is there taught with greater plainness 
than that the dead shall rise. Not even is the 
doctrine of justification by faith more inter- 
woven with hope and promise, faith and prac- 
tice, than is the resurrection of the body. Has 
any doctrine a more lengthened and logical 
argumentation, than has this in the fifteenth 
chapter of 1st Corinthians ? What could be 
more explicit than these words : " If there be 
no resurrection, then is Christ not risen. But 
now is Christ risen from the dead, and be- 
come the first fruits of them that slept. Ifc 
(body) is sown in corruption, it is raised in in- 
corruption ; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in 

* Burder. 



44 EESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

glory ; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in 
power ; it is sown a natural body, it is raised 
a spiritual body. ^^ '^ For the trumpet shall 
sound, and the dead shall be raised incorrupt- 
ible, and we shall be changed." There is no 
ambiguity here ; no figure, or trope, or alle- 
gory. Note how circumstantial is the account 
Paul gives of the order of the resurrection : 
" For this we say unto you by the Word of 
the Lord, that we which are alive and remain 
unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent 
(be in advance) of them which are asleep,'' 
i. e., shall not rise before them : " For the 
Lord himself shall descend from heaven with 
a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and 
with the trump of God ; and the dead in 
Christ shall rise first ; then we which are alive 
and remain shall be caught up, together with 
them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the 
air."'* Our Lord associated the awards of the 
judgment with this resurrection when He 
spoke of kindness to the poor — '' for they can- 
not recompense thee : for thou shalt be recom- 
pensed at the resurrection of the just."t And 

* 1 Tiiess. iv. 16, 17. t Luko xiv. 14. 



AN IMMORTAL BODY. 45 

when the Sadducees presented this doctrine, 
distorted by the absurdities of the Eabbis, our 
Lord did not join with them in sarcasm, but 
avowed himself a believer, by correcting their 
false reasoning : " Ye do err, not knowing the 
Scriptures nor the power of God.' ' This reply 
seems to us the best which can now be rend- 
ered to those who in these times say " there 
is no resurrection of the dead." For they, like 
their ancestors at Corinth, attempt, over the 
Bible, and retaining the cognomen of Christian, 
to explain away the universal orthodox belief 
in the final and general resurrection. By these 
'' the resurrection is declared to be an affair of 
every day occurrence. It takes place with every 
man at the instant of his death. As the globe, 
according to late estimates, is supposed to con- 
tain a population of some thirteen hundred 
millions, and as thirty-two millions die annu- 
ally, and ninety, or a hundred thousand daily, 
,so some ninety or a hundred thousand pass daily 
to a resurrection state. At death there is eli- 
minated from these physical bodies, that have 
been transmitted to us from our first father, 
some subtle, etherial, undefinable substance, 
in which the soul is enveloped while in its 



» 
46 EESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

earthly tabernacle, so that soul and body enter 
at once upon a changeless state of perfection 
and glory. It is further aflBrmed that this re- 
surrection body, that is eliminated at the death 
of every man is developed by a natural law, and 
not by the direct agency or power of God, as 
the Scriptures unequivocally declare. There is, 
therefore, no intermediate state — no day of final 
judgment — nor any end of the world, or term- 
ination of the present constitution of things 
in conformity with the uniform belief of the 
Church of Christ in every age."^ This we 
understand to be the Swedenborgian doctrine. 
It is defended by an adroit manipulation of 
those passages in which the expression " rising 
from the dead " occurs. It is beyond our de- 
sign to travel over these expositions in order 
to refute them. We simply ask the reader 
calmly to ponder the descriptions above, given 
from God's Word, and then try to harmonize 
them with any such spiritual resurrection. 
How can such an idea accord with the descent 
of our Lord, the coming of the archangel, the 
rising of those already dead, to be followed 

* Bibliotlieea Sacra, Yol. xvii. p. 758. 



AN IMMORTAL BODY. 47 

into the air by those then living ? The entire 
arrangement of tlie resurrection, and the fact 
that it is everywhere spoken of as a general oc- 
currence, in which all mankind participate, in 
masses, forbid the gratuitous supposition that 
it is merely an individual thing, taking place 
to each person immediately after death. 

But we have evidence of another kind to 
present, not only as conjGLrming express state- 
ments respecting a resurrection, but also as 
refuting the dogma of a spiritual resurrection. 
And this evidence is furnished by instances of 
an actual rising from the cori'uption of death. 

The Gospel history gives several instances in 
which our Lord restored the dead to life, some- 
times just after death, and at other times, as in 
the case of the son of the widow of Nain, when 
the body was prepared for burial. In the rais- 
ing of Lazarus have we not a fair illustration 
and confirmation of our doctrine ? There putre- 
faction had commenced its disorganizing pro- 
cess ; yet life's currents flowed again through- 
out all that corporeal system. The decay of 
its atoms was arrested ; warmth and color re- 
turned to the marbled flesh. There, indeed, 



48 RESUREECTION OF THE DEAD* 

was a visible agent who wrought the miracle. 
"Lazarus, come forth !" and a divine energy- 
accompanied those words. It was a miracle, 
do you say ? True ! And so will the final 
resurrection be a miracle. Natural causes will 
have no more share in that event, than they 
did in the resurrection of Lazarus. For, as 
his decaying body came forth at the voice of 
Jesus, so will our decayed bodies rise, when 
the Son of Man coming in the clouds shall 
speak. That voice is as able to raise myriads, 
as to raise one. 

Christ's own resurrection is another case in 
point. In it there was no visible agency. Not 
even Gabriel could be commissioned to ad- 
dress that dust. No voice broke the silence. 
From heaven came no words, as at the Sav- 
iour's baptism, to startle the guards. All was 
accomplished in the profoundest silence, and 
in the dead hour of night. The coming of the 
angel, and the rolling away of the stone, an- 
nounced the transaction completed. This also, 
was a miracle. 

But we have an instance approaching closely 
the resurrection of the last day, and an impress- 
ive type of the general resurrection. Matthew, 



AN IMMOETAL BODY. 49 

in relating the incidents connected with the 
Saviour's death, states that the graves were 
opened, " and many bodies of the saints which 
slept arose and came out of their graves after 
His resurrection, and went into the holy city 
and appeared unto many." Probably some of 
them had lain many j^ears in their graves, and 
their bodies had quite decomposed, yet they 
were re-clothed in flesh. Now, w^hy should 
this miracle have occurred in connexion with 
the resurrection of our Lord ? Does it not 
associate the resurrection of the body with the 
salvation of the soul ? It brings forward the 
resurrection as a prominent feature of the new 
dispensation. It is a type of a general resur- 
rection — indeed, a pledge of it. And as the 
apostles proclaimed this novel doctrine, they 
furnished evidence of its possibility by raising 
the dead. 

The Old Testament is not without its hints 
that man may have a body in the other world ; 
for two eminent servants of God took their 
bodies with them beyond human vision. Enoch 
was translated so that he did not see death; ^'he 
was not, for Grod took him," not his soul 

merely, but his body also. Elijah was rapt 
3 



50 RESUEEECTION OF THE DEAD. 

away in the fiery chariot, and left only hia 
mantle. These are forerunners of Lazarus and 
the Jerusalem saints, or, as Turtullian styles 
them, '' candidates of the resurrection." Like 
the promise to our first parents, their miracu- 
lous departure signifies far more to ns, than to 
those of their own times. 

And now, cannot that divine energy which 
wrought miracles effect the resurrection of all 
human bodies? Assuredly. For, "if the spirit 
of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead 
dwell in you. He that raised up Christ from 
the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies 
by His Spirit that dwelleth in you." 

We conclude, therefore, that the Scriptures 
teach a future existence for the body of man, 
as well as for his soul. That future existence 
will be eternal. Death will never despoil the 
resurrection body ; and thus it will be im- 
mortal. Man, as a being who combines body 
and spirit, is invested with immortality in his 
whole nature. 



CHAPTER in. 



RESUERECTION OF CHRIST. 

" He is not here ; for He is risen as He said."— Matt, xsviii. 6. 

Majestical He rose ; trembled the earth ; 
The ponderous gate of stone was rolled away ; 
The keepers fell, the angels awe-struck, sunk 
Into invisibilitj, while forth 
The Saviour of the world walked, and stood 
Before the sepulchre, and viewed the clouds, 
Empurpled glorious by the rising sun. 

In the last chapter we considered the testi- 
mony of the Bible concerning a resurrection 
of the dead. During that investigation we 
found several instances recorded where bodies, 
dead, buried, decaying and decayed, had been 
restored to life. Of those restorations, that of 
Jesus Christ was the most prominent and im- 
portant. But that resurrection is of such vast 
and eternal consequence, as to demand more 
than the passing notice it then received ; for 
it is made the pledge and evidence of the gene- 
51 



52 EESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

ral resurrection ; yea more, upon the resurrec- 
tion of that body is laid the truth or falseness 
of the Christian religion. With a vehemence 
that arrests attention, however often we have 
read the words, Paul ventures the whole " Gos- 
pel of the grace of God" upon the single cir- 
cumstance, that Jesus of Nazareth rose from 
the grave. ''If Christ be not risen, then is our 
preaching vain" — it is of no value — "and 
your faith is also vain " — a delusion, a cheat — 
all your glorious anticipations of a home in 
heaven are doomed to bitter disappointment. 
" Ye are yet in your sins.^^ Not one transgres- 
sion is blotted out — Jesus Christ was not the 
Saviour you thought Him to be. " Then they 
also which are fallen asleep in Christ a7^e 
perished.^^ Your beloved who departed this 
life, hopefully trusting in the redemption of 
Jesus, were deceived. Dying in the belief 
that they should rise to glory, they are sunk 
to perdition. They are perished. Thus 
Paul sweeps the living and the dead in his 
inexorable logic. If that body rose, Chris- 
tianity is trustworthy. We may rest the 
priceless interests of our immortal nature 
upon the promises of the Gospel. If that body 



RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 53 

did not rise, Christianity is a cheat. We need 
investigate no further. Proven false at the 
tomb of Christ, it is a waste of time to go to 
the cross, or to the manger. And further, if 
that body rose, another truth demands our 
acceptance ; other bodies will rise at an ap- 
pointed time. But if that body did not rise, 
then the resurrection of the dead is a figment. 
Thus, upon the resurrection of Jesus Christ 
depend the salvation of the soul and the re- 
demption of the body. Did He rise ? 

Before we take up the evidence, let us con- 
sider a few preliminary facts, which will have 
a bearing upon that evidence, and which will 
dispose our minds favorably or unfavorably, to 
the probability of such a resurrection. 

Why should there he a resurrection of that body ? 
Was there anything to be accomplished by it ? 
We are accustomed to exercise our reason in 
regard to the mediatorial work of Jesus Christ. 
We show, or attempt to show, why the Saviour, 
whose task was to propitiate God in behalf of 
man, must be both God and man. We state 
why he must die to be a sin-offering. We can 
appreciate the necessity of the miracles He 



54 EESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

performed, as an attestation of His divine 
nature. Now, can we apply our intellect to 
the resurrection of that Jesus, and reach any 
conclusion as to its necessity ? If we can per- 
ceive why that body should die^ can we per- 
ceive why the same body should live again ? 
It was important, either from the necessity of 
the case, or as an incontrovertible evidence of 
His divine mission. This we infer, because 
Jesus made His resurrection just as prominent 
as His death. He taught that He must die, as 
a part of his work ; and He also taught that He 
must rise again. Are, then, the death and 
resurrection of Christ co-ordinate parts of the 
scheme of redemption ? Or is the resurrec- 
tion to be regarded only as the keystone of 
the whole arch of evidence, as resting on 
miracles and prophecy ? Both, I think. The 
resurrection of Jesus Christ is a part of the 
scheme of redemption. 

The scheme for redeeming fallen man is as- 
sociated with a human body. " Forasmuch, 
then, as the children are partakers of flesh and 
blood, He also Himself likewise took part of 
the same (flesh and blood), that through death 
He might destroy him that had the power of 



RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 55 

death — that is the devil." " Wherefore when 
he Cometh into the world he saith, sacrifice 
and offering thou wouldest not, but a body- 
hast thou prepared me." " We are sanctified 
through the offering of the body of Jesus, once 
for all."'^ Now, while it was not the body 
which gave efficacy to all this, but the divine 
nature in that body ; yet this body of Jesus 
was not a mere appendage or instrument, to 
be laid aside when the work was completed. 
It had a higher and more permanent relation. 
As its creation and subsequent history were 
diverse from all other human bodies, so should 
be its destiny. It was an immaculate body all 
through its abode on earth. It was never 
made an instrument of unrighteousness. It 
bore none of the marks of sin. Its only wounds 
were those of the scourge, the thorns, the 
nails, the spear. Sin had made none. Disease 
had never shown itself in palsied limb, or 
blemish, or defect, nor ever prostrated, even 
for an hour, that Son of Man. As, there- 
fore, its history was nobler and purer than that 
of any other human flesh, so should be its des- 

* Heb. ii, 14 ; x. 5-10. 



56 RESUEEECTION OF THE DEAD, 

tiny. Ponder with profound reverence such 
Scriptures as these : " Our conversation is in 
heaven, from whence also we look for the 
Saviour, the Lord Jesus, w^ho shall change our 
vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto 
His glorious body."'^' Into heaven He ascended 
with that body, and angels declared, " this same 
Jesus, w^hich is taken up from you into heaven, 
shall so come in like manner as ye have seen 
Him go into heaven."-^ This must mean that 
He shall return in a bodily form ; for with 
such He w^ent up, in sight of the apostles. 
Combine with this 1 John iii. 2 : " We know 
that when He shall appear we shall be like 
Him ;" also 1 Corinthians, xv. 49 : "As we 
have borne the image of the earthly, we shall 
also bear the image of the heavenly ;" that is, 
as we have borne the image of Adam as to 
his body, we shall bear the image of Christ 
as to his body. Paul is here treating of the 
kind of body the resurrection will produce. 
V/hen Stephen, in the presence of his malig- 
nant persecutors, " looked up steadfastly into 
heaven," he saw " the glory of Grod." He 

t Acts i. 11. 



RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 57 

did not see G-od, but he did see " Jesus stand- 
ing on the right hand of God," and he recog- 
nized Him. And our Lord, whenever revealed 
in heaven, is represented in a bodily shape, 
or attitude, as standing or sitting. What 
change that body underwent we are not in- 
formed ; nor do we know its present nature, 
appearance or form. All this the cloud con- 
ceals. 

But we can pursue this thought no further. 
The glorified body of Jesus in heaven is so 
connected wdth the Trinity in all the mys- 
teriousness of their personality and unity, 
that we must arrest our thoughts. Let us, 
then, call them back to the fact which seems 
to be fairly derived, that our Saviour possesses 
in heaven a glorified body. This may be ob- 
jected to as inconsistent with his character as 
the second person of the Trinity. To this 
the reply is suflRcient, that this glorified body 
in heaven no more necessarily interferes with 
our idea of Him as one of the Godhead, than 
did His existence in a fleshly body on our 
earth. In other words, the union of His di- 
vine nature with a glorified body, is no more 
beyond our reason, than was the union of the 



58 EESUEEECTION OF THE DEAD. 

divine nature with an ordinary human body. 
We cannot understand the one, nor can we 
the other. The appeal must be to the Scrip- 
tures. Is it taught there ? If so, we per- 
ceive wherein lies the necessity, in the plan of 
redemption, that Jesus Christ's body should 
rise from the grave. It was the divine ap- 
pointment that man's Advocate should retain 
humanity in heaven. 

In considering this necessity we must bear 
in mind that redemption rescues the body as 
w^ell as the soul. Both came under the curse 
of sin. Both are saved, if either is. " There- 
fore, fear not them which kill the body, but 
are not able to kill the soul ; but rather fear 
Him which is able to destroy both soul and 
body in hell." Our Lord associates the resur- 
rection with spiritual life. " Verily, verily, I 
say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is, 
when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son 
of God, and they that hear shall live." This 
is spiritual life, by which those who are '' dead 
in trespass and sins are made alive in Christ 
Jesus." And then He adds : " Marvel not at 
this, for the hour is coming in which all that 
are in the graves shall hear His voice, and 



EESUREECTION OF CHRIST. 59 

shall come forth." Here is life for the body. 
In another place he unites these two in one 
expression. " This is the will of Him that 
sent me, that every one which seeth the Son 
and beheveth on Him may have everlasting 
life, and I will raise him np at the last day." 
Life for the soul was not all His work, but 
life for the body also. Hence we find how 
much He did for the body while He abode 
among men. His miracles were devoted to 
removing the ills and diseases of the flesh, 
relieving it from its tormentors. Very few of 
those miracles were on natural objects. Out 
of thirty-five recorded miracles, all but eight 
were for the relief of man's body. And that 
apostle, who may be called the a]30stle of the 
resurrection, in that he refers to it more than 
all the other writers of the New Testament, 
reiterates the same truth of the connection 
between Christ's resurrection and our salva- 
tion. In Eomans, iv. 25, he speaks of Jesus 
Christ, " who was delivered for our offences, 
and was raised again for our justification," 
And he exhorts the Corinthian believers to 
live '' unto Hmi which dipd for them and rose 
again." Hence, that corpse placed in Joseph's 



60 KESUEEECTION OF THE DEAD. 

tomb was a representative corpse. As Jesns 
died for iis, so He rose for us. He represented 
the sinner on the cross, and bore in his stead 
the punishment. In like manner, His body 
represents the corpse of the saint, which, laid 
in the tomb, does not perish there, but rises 
on the appointed day. 

We may therefore conclude that the same 
infinite w^isdom which devised the way of sal- 
vation by a Redeemer, who should have ^'a 
true body and a reasonable soul," also determ- 
ined that the hiuxianity should be retained 
w^hen the Redeemer ascended into heaven. 

But in addition to this, the resurrection of 
Jesus Christ was to furnish most weighty 
evidence of His divine mission. This is par- 
ticularly true, if w^e consider the way in which 
it was put by our Saviour ; for His resurrection 
w^as not a proof of the same class as the rais- 
ing of Lazarus, because Jesus announced in 
advance that He w^ould rise from the grave 
within three days after He was laid in it. 
Almost as soon as He began His public teach- 
ing. He presented an enigma to the religious 
teachers at Jerusalem, which, pondered in con- 



RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. Gl 

nection with His discourses, could not fail to 
be understood : "Destroy this temple, and in 
three days I will build it again." The Gos- 
pel-record shows that this promise of His 
resurrection was frequently referred to. One 
circumstance puts its publicity beyond all 
doubt, for after His burial in the tomb in the 
garden, members of the Sanhedrim came to 
Pilate, and said, "Sh% we remember that that 
deceiver said, while he was yet alive, after 
three days I will rise again." Those two on 
their way to Emmaus, when overtaken by 
Jesus, whom they did not recognize, said, in 
relating to him the events which had just oc- 
curred, " Besides all this, to-day is the third 
day since these things were done." The third 
day after his death was given out, during all 
the years of his ministry, as the day which 
should furnish the deciding test that He was 
what he claimed to be ; and w^hen he reap- 
peared in the flesh, the proof was overwhelm- 
ing. 

If we further consider the nature of this test, 
we shall perceive how perfectly convincing it 
was calculated to be. The Pharisees parried 
the force of some of our Lord's miracles, by 



62 RESUREECTION OF THE DEAD. 

asserting that they were done in collusion with 
Satan. Some might declare that He healed 
diseased persons by a subtle magician's art. 
There were impostors in those times, who 
pretended to work wondrous cures ; but what 
prophet, or what man claiming to be heaven- 
sent had ever been known to die and come 
out of his grave again ? And though it were 
possible — barely possible — -that by stupefying 
drugs one might lie apparently dead for a few 
days, and then revive, yet even this supposi- 
tion is untenable, because Jesus was Jcillcd, not 
by friends, but by foes. There could be no 
deception. Who but God could raise him 
up ? and would God raise a deceiver out of 
his grave ? 

The resurrection of our Lord, therefore, was 
heaven's attestation to every truth He uttered, 
and to His claim to be the Messiah. His great 
work was to make propitiation for sin. God 
declares, in raising Him up, that His sacrifice 
is accepted — that his undertakmg is success- 
ful. God expresses himself appeased, and His 
law satisfied. " God hath acknowledged sat- 
isfaction done to his justice by discharging 
our surety from restraint, and from all further 



EESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 63 

prosecution. Since in a manner so notorious 
God hath declared His favor toward our proxy, 
what pretense can be alleged against us — 
what suspicion of displeasure can remain?"* 
The believer now may have his faith strength- 
ened as he '' sees the place where the Lord 
lay." That empty sepulchre is like the un- 
occupied bar where once the prisoner stood. 
It reminds us of the trial. But it is a gravey 
and therefore reminds us how death w^as over- 
come by suffering, and by grappling with the 
strong man armed in his own house. In our 
place that Holy One stood. He suffered and 
died as our substitute. He became our life. 
Looking into that tomb, we can exclaim — 
" Delivered for our offenses and raised again for 
our justification." '' Who then shall lay any- 
thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God 
that justifieth ; who is he that condemneth? 
It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen 
again." " The resurrection of our Lord owes 
its peculiar importance to the fact of its being 
the result of his penal, vicarious, expiatory 
sufferings. It is the evidence that the Su- 

* Barrow. 



64 EESUKRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

preme Judge is satisfied with these sufferings, 
as an adequate compensation for the injuries 
done to His law' and government by the sins 
of men. ' It is finished,' said the Saviour from 
the cross ; and from out the empty sepulchre 
comes, to the ear of enlightened faith, the echo 
of these words, ' It is finished ;' for God, as 
the ' God of peace,' the reconciled Divinity, 
He who was angry at the sins of men, but 
w^hose anger is turned away, has brought again 
from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great 
Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of 
the everlasting covenant. Because that blood 
by which the everlasting covenant was to be 
ratified has been shed, therefore hath God 
raised Him up from the dead, and given Him 
glory, that our faith and hope might be in 
God ; as well pleased with Him, well pleased 
with us in Him. Having fully answered all 
the demands of law under which He was made 
* for the unjust,' having fulfilled all righteous- 
ness, having become a curse for them, having 
become obedient unto death, even the death 
of the cross, it was not possible that He should 
continue bound by the bands of death. The 
only reason which ever existed for his dying, 



RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. G5 

to wit, that human guilt might be expiated, 
existed no. longer. Human guilt is expiated. 
The great atonement has been made."^ 

We remark further, that the resurrection of 
Jesus Christ is a subject of pvphecy. In the 
sixteenth Psalm we have these words : " Thou 
wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt 
thou suflerthineHoly One to see corruption." 
Inspired comment refers this to Christ. Peter 
argues it at large in his address on the day of 
Pentecost, concluding in these words : " There- 
fore* being a prophet, and knowing that God 
had sworn with an oath to him that of the 
fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he 
would raise up Christ to sit on his throne ; he 
seeing this before, spake of the resurrection 
of Christ, that His soul was not left in hell, 
neither his flesh did see corruption." Paul 
makes the same application in his discourse 
at Antioch in Pisidia. That the Old Testa- 
ment did teach this, w^hen rightly understood, 
is seen from the comment of John, when he 
records the coming of himself and Peter to 

* Brown ou 1st Peter. 



66 EESUREECTION OF THE DEAD. 

the sepulchre : '' For as yet they hnew not the 
scripture, that He must rise again from the 
dead.^' Prophecy does not render plain the 
fact of Christ's resurrection, but neither does 
it specify the mode of His death. The sacri- 
ficial work of the Messiah is frequently re- 
ferred to, and we have an accurate portrayal 
of it in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. This 
was all the prophets need speak of. But we 
may include the resurrection in that sacrificial 
work, because the resurrection and ascension 
were but the closing scenes of the drama, even 
as the birth and childhood were the opening. 
There was no need of distinguishing these 
parts of Christ's wondrous course centuries 
before He came. But when He began to teach 
— Himself the prophet, His own prophet — 
He drew the line of _demarkation between the 
cross and the tomb. 

And now what are the facts of the resurrec- 
tion of our Lord ? "In the end of the Sabbath, 
as it began to dawn toward the first day of the 
week, came Mary Magdalene and the other 
Mary, to see the sepulchre. And behold there 
was a great earthquake ; for the angel of the 



I 



EESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 67 

Lord descended from heaven, and came and 
rolled back the stone from the door and sat upon 
it. His countenance was like lightning, and his 
raiment white as snow, and for fear of him the 
keepers did shake, and became as dead men. 
And the angel answered and said unto the 
women, fear not ye, for I know that ye seek 
Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here ; 
for He is risen, as He said." But what evi- 
dence is there that this is a true record ? The 
very best that any historical fact rests on. 

There is, first, the divine authority of the 
look w^hich contains the account. We have 
far less reason to discredit the Bible as a his- 
tory, than we have to reject any other written 
history, ancient or modern. The Bible has 
stood ^the test of ages, and no one of its state- 
ments has yet been proved erroneous. 

But look at the chain of testimony which 
Paul binds together. He was seen on the 
morning of the resurrection by Mary and 
Peter ; in the afternoon by the two disciples 
going to Emmaus ; in the evening by the 
eleven. At that time He showed them His 
hands and His feet, that they might be assured 
He was the crucified one. He was seen by 



68 RESUEEECTION OF THE DEAD. 

over five hundred at one time, the greater part 
of whom, i. e., at least three hundred, were 
alive when Paul wrote to the Corinthians. 
All these saw Him with their own eyes. 

Now while this large number was alive, the 
greater portion of whom probably lived in 
Judea, the apostles openly asserted every- 
where, even in the presence of the Sanhedrim, 
that Jesus Christ did rise. They did not wait 
until the associates of the Son of man had 
passed away ; they did not preach " Jesus and 
the resurrection" only where it would be 
difficult to disprove their statements; but 
they began in Jerusalem, and even in the 
courts of the temple — in the hearing and 
within the power of the very men who could 
show them to be impostors, if they really were. 
Some of them were arrested and brought be- 
fore the court, which was composed of the same 
men who condemned Jesus to death. And 
what Vfas the course of Peter and John when 
thus arraigned ? They charged defiantly upon 
that council, that the man whom they unjustly 
crucified did rise from the dead. Did this coun- 
cil deny the statement ? They made no reply, 
except to forbid them to preach again in '' that 



RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 69 

name." Now if there were no resurrection, 
why did not the Sanhedrim prove these men 
to be deceivers, and hand them over to Pilate 
for punishment ? How easily the priests could 
have brought these offenders to justice ! And 
yet they never attempted it. 

Besides, we have an evidence of the resur- 
rection of our Lord appealing to us every 
Sabbath-day. The Jews observed the seventh 
day of the week as holy time. We keep the 
first day. Now what produced the change ? 
History has only one reply. The first day of 
the week was declared to be the holy day for 
Christians, because upon it Jesus Christ came 
out of His grave. The fourth of July cele- 
brates the declaration of the independence of 
the American Colonies. The observance of 
that day is a proof that there was on that day 
such a declaration. So with the Lord''s day. 
We learn there was a time when the first day 
of the week was not held sacredly ; but shortly 
after the resurrection we discover that it took 
the place of the Jewish Sabbath, and for the 
avowed reason — none other has ever been 
given — that the Lord rose from the dead on 
that day. The Christian Sabbath, therefore. 



70 RESURKECTION OF THE DEAD. 

is a constant memorial that the Lord Jesus 
Christ rose on the third day, '' according to 
the Scriptures." It is God's weekly assevera- 
tion to every believer, that his faith is not 
vain, that he is not in his sins, and that they 
who fail asleep in Christ are not perished. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE EESUEEECTION OF THE DEAD THE RE- 
SULT OF chkist's resurrection. 

Jesus said unto her, Jam the resurrection and the life; he that 
helieveth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live ; and whosO' 
ever liveth and helieveth in me shall never die. Believest thou 
this ?— John, xi. 25, 26. 

For since by man came death, by man also came the resurrection 
of the dead.— 1 Corinthians, xiii. 21. 

All hail, triumphant Lord, 

Who savest us with thy blood ! 
Wide be thy name adored, 
Thou rising, reigning God. 
With thee we rise — with thee we reign, 
And empires gain beyond the skies. 

We have seen that the resurrection of our 
Lord was necessary, in order that He might 
have a body in heaven ; and that His resurrec- 
tion was designed as a convincing proof of His 
divine mission on earth. But is this all the 
relation which that resurrection bears to 
us? Is it, like His divine nature, only to as- 
sure of safety through faith in Him, and for 

our wonder and admiration as we meditate 
71 



72 RESUERECTION OF THE DEAD. 

upon his conquest of death? Or, like the 
cross, is the resurrection a fundamental truth, 
with which our eternal destiny is linked? 
However we may regard the doctrine, accord- 
ing to Paul's teaching, the connection of the 
resurrection of Christ with the general resur- 
rection is founded in the divine arrangement 
of redemption. The Lord Jesus, by His resur- 
rection, has made a commencement in the 
resurrection of the dead, and the latter is a 
necessary consequence of the former. ''If 
Christ be preached that He rose from the dead, 
how say some among you that there is no 
resurrection of the dead?" You cannot sep-* 
arate the two. If Christ rose, the dead rise. 
Upon investigation we learn two things : 
1. That the terms descriptive of the general 
resurrection are almost exclusively such as 
apply only to the renewed soul. 2. That the 
resurrection of Jesus Christ is connected with 
that of the believer, as intimately as the suf- 
ferings of the Saviour are related to the re- 
demption of the soul. 

We are surprised, as we read the Epistles, 
to find how little is said concerning the resur- 



RESULT OF Christ's resurrection. 73 

rection of the wicked. The inspired writers 
hardly seemed to have them in mind. The ar- 
gmnent of Paul, in 1st Corinthians, relates 
solely to believers. The opening words of that 
fifteenth chapter are directed to the church. 
"Moreover, hretkreri, I declare unto you the gos- 
pel," the two great divisions of which he states 
to be, " that Christ died for our sins, and that 
he was buried, and that he rose again the third 
day." The same class he has in mind in the 
fourteenth verse. '- And if Christ be not risen, 
then is our preaching vain, and your faith is 
also vain." In describing the order of the 
resurrection, he writes, '' every man in his own 
order ; Christ the first fruits, afterward they 
that are Christ's at his coming." He is silent 
as to any other class. It is also evident that 
the apostle refers to believers, and not to man- 
kind indiscriminately when he declares, "And 
as we have borne the image of the earthy, we 
shall also bear the image of the heavenly. 
Now this I say, brethren^ that flesh and blood 
cannot inherit the kingdom of God." " For 
this corruptible must put on incorruption, and 
this mortal must put on immortality. So 
when this corruptible shall have put on incor- 
4 



74 RESUIiEECTIOK OF THE DEAD. 

ruption; and this mortal shall have put on im- 
raoitality, then shall be brought to pass the 
saying that is written, death is swallowed up 
in victory." And his conclusion certainly is 
applicable solely to the Lord's people. 
" Therefore, my beloved brethreuj^be ye stead- 
fast, unmovable, always abounding in the 
work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that 
your labor is not in vain in the Lord." And 
it is very significant, as confirming our state- 
ment, that the resurrection which occurred at 
Jerusalem at the same time with our Lord's 
v/as limited to the righteous. '' Many bodies of 
the saints which slept arose." This same exclu- 
sive reference to believers is a marked feature 
of nearly every other passage of the New 
Testament bearing on the final resurrection ; 
and assuredly, the henefixs of that resurrection 
accrue only to the Christian. All. that is de- 
sirable, ennobling and glorious in the coming 
out of the grave are His alone. He has the in- 
corruptible and immortal body. He bears the 
image of the heavenly. He is caught up into 
the clouds. He shall be ever with the Lord. 

This will appear more evident as we pro- 



RESULT OF CHRIST'S RESURRECTION. 75 

ceed to show that the resurrection of the right- 
3021S is coupled ivith Jesus Christ, 

Paul declares that God raised His Son from 
the dead not in order to display a single spe- 
cimen of His power, but to exert on believers 
the same energy of His Spirit. Hence he calls 
Christ '' our life." " He that raised up Christ 
from the dead shall also quicken your mortal 
bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you."* 
Christ and the believer are brought together 
in this resurrection. Seldom are they spoken 
of apart when the resurrection is alluded to. 
'' When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, 
then shall ye also appear with Him in glory." 
"It doth not yet appear what we shall be, 
but we know when he shall appear we shall 
be like him."t 

It is the union between Christ and His fol- 
lowers w^hich allies them in this resurrection, 
and which causes His resurrection to secure 
theirs. " Because I live, ye shall live also." 
*' I am the vine, ye are the branches." The 
sap, which during the winter was withdrawn 
from the branches, has been preserved all the 

** Rom. viii. 11. t Col. iii. 4, and 1 John, iii. 2- 



76 EESUERECTION OF THE DEAD. 

while in the root, and when the warming suns 
of spring smite the trunk and the roots, the 
sap resumes its flow to the outmost twig, and 
the branch blooms again. So the winter of 
death chills the believer's body, and it dies 
and becomes a lifeless branch ; yet the life- 
power — the immortal vitality thereof— is pre- 
served in Him who is " the resurrection and 
the life." And these bodies, " being still 
united to Christ, do rest in their graves until 
the resurrection." And then, as the Lord 
Jesus is "revealed from heaven, with His 
mighty angels," this inanimate dust is rein- 
fased with a lifie " drawn from Immanuel's 
veins." " For your life is hid with Christ in 
God. When Christ, w^ho is our life, shall ap- 
pear, then shall ye also appear with Him in 
glory."^ As there is a union with Him on the 
cross, so is there a union with Him in the 
resurrection. Christ and His people are one — 
" I in them." " Christ rose that we might be 
the companions of His future life. He was 
raised by the Father, inasmuch as he was the 
head of the church, from which He does not 
suffer Him to be separated." t 

* Col, iii. 3, 4. t Calvin. 



RESULT OF Christ's resurrection. 77 

As He passed through the grave, robbing 
death of its terrors^ so in that day He will rob 
the grave of its victims. The horror of the grave 
is its corruption, but He makes that grave the 
crucible, and the corruption is the flame, and 
the vrorms are the fuel by means of which the 
dross shall be consumed, until, on the resur- 
rection day, as He looks into that grave, like 
the refiner over molten silver. He shall behold 
only His own image. The body is the Lord's, 
and the grave is the keeper. It has not eternal 
power over that flesh. For when the Lord 
comes and demands His own, the grave must 
relinquish its booty. 

Death, which is gorged with the human 
family, and fills the grave with infant and sire, 
with maiden and matron, was condemned and 
judicially abolished by His death ; but it is ex- 
ecuted and expunged in the resurrection. In 
His own resurrection He bruised death, and 
trampled thereon. He crushed it, and though 
it yet exists, its end approaches. He receives 
the gift of immortality y which was bestowed 
when ''He ascended on high, leading captivity 
captive." '' He, by His resurrection, dis- 
solved the tyranny of death, and with Him- 



78 RESUKRECTION OP THE DEAD. 

self raised up the whole world."'* " By the 
pledge of His resurrection He loosed the bands 
of death."t Thereby, says St. Leo, " death 
received its destruction, and life its beginning." 
All these are derived through Jesus Christ. 
So that as by man carae death, by ma7i also 
came the resurrection of the dead. 

Thus Jesus Christ is " the j^rst fruits of them 
that slept." So that our resurrection is a di- 
rect and assured consequence of His. The 
first fruits^ under the Levitical law, was a pledge 
and harbinger of the harvest, and denoted that 
all the sheaves were consecrated unto God. 
Now Christ is such a first fruit, because His 
resurrection is an earnest of that general har- 
vest which shall be at the end of the world, 
when '^ the angels, the reapers, shall come to 
gather tlie elect from the four winds," that 
they may be garnered in their own dwelling — 
that " building of God, a house not made with 
hands, eternal in the heavens." So is He the 
''first-hegotten of the dead.^^ And this secures 
our resurrection to eternal life, because He 
who hath promised to raise us up did "raise 
himself from the dead." " The first-begotten 

* Chrjsostom. t Ambrose. 



RESULT OF CIiraST'S RESUERECTION. 79 

of the dead!" This title He assumes when 
He reappears to Joim in the visions of Patmos. 
'' Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and 
the first-begotten of the dead." This title He 
bears, not that he was the first in order of 
time that rose from the dead ; for there is the 
widow's son raised by Elijah, and the Shu- 
namite's child restored to life by Elisha, and 
the man who was brought to life when his 
body touched the bones of the prophet ; and 
there are those raised by our Lord himself. 
The phrase means that Christ was the first of 
those who rose Qiever to die agavii; for Lazarus 
and all those who came to life from the state 
of the dead at our Lord's resurrection returned 
again to their graves when their new lease of 
life was expired. But Christ rose never to die 
again ; or, as He expresses it to John, in that 
same apocalyptic vision, " I am He that liveth 
and was dead, and behold I am alive forever 
more.'''' He is the first-born of all the dead 
that shall rise at the last day. He is the be- 
ginning of the resurrection, and the author of 
life everlasting. 

He also is the j)ledge of our resurrection. 
How know I that my dead body shall rise 



so RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

again? that it shall ever be recovered from 
mother earth, with which it seems inextricably 
mixed? God has said the dead shall rise 
again, and this mortal put on immortality. 
God hath said it — yea. He hath done it ; not as 
yet in the body of any of my kindred, but in 
the body of my Kinsman^ the Lord Jesns. For 
His body is not on the earth. The sepulchre 
of Christ is an empty tomb. The worms find 
no flesh there. Corruption holds no carnival 
there. Death is debarred that grave. Death 
once was there, but alone, in that dark tomb, 
my Jesus struggled with this king of terrors, 
and ejected him from his own house. 

Thus is the Saviour the " first-begotten from 
the dead." He is the first-begotten, and not 
therefore the ordy one. Myriads are to be as- 
sociated with Him; for '^all those who sleep 
in Jesus shall God bring with Him." " More- 
over also my flesh shall rest in hope." Believ- 
ing the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we must 
believe in our own, "for whom he both died 
and rose again .^' 

In His blessed life 
I see the path, and in His death the price, 
And in His great ascent the proof supreme 



RESULT OF CHEIST'S RESURRECTION. 81 

Of immortalitv. And did He rise ? 

Hear, O je nations I Hear it, O ye dead! 

He rose ! He rose I He burst the bars of death ; 

He who left 
His throne of glory for the pangs of death 

He who slew 
The ravenous foe that gorged all human race. 

By this resurrection of Jesus Christ the be- 
liever is restored to ^perfect manhood. God made 
us after His own image, in knowledge, right- 
eousness and holiness. These are marred, dis- 
abled, and have become the opposites of the 
originals. Now the work of Christ is to re- 
instate these in their original excellence, to 
re-establish manhood as God made it. But 
there can be no perfect manhood apart from 
the body. The soul may be perfect wdthout 
a body, but it would be perfect as a spirit, or 
as an angel, but not a perfect man. Not, 
therefore, until the body is renewed and sanc- 
tified, as well as the soul, does man re-appear 
with Eden's bloom. Hence the Scriptures 
affirm that our bodies are to be like unto His 
glori-Dus body, while our spirits are to come 
back again to righteousness and holiness. 
Thus are we renewed after the '' image of Him 

who created us." But this will not be until 
4* 



82 RESUERECTION OF THE DEAD. 

the disabilities produced by sin are annulled. 
Disease, pain, weakness, and mortality must 
be eradicated from the body, as well as anger, 
envy, hatred, ignorance, and perversity of will 
be removed from the soul, before man will be 
reinstated in his original excellence. Thus the 
resurrection completes our likeness to Christ. 

But this resurrection casts its shadow on 
this side of the grave, in that its eifects par- 
tially begin in this life. The conversion of a 
man is described as a new life. The old man, 
^' which is corrupt according to deceitful 
lusts," is said to be '' put off," and the renewed 
person '^ puts on the new man, which after God 
is created in righteousness and true holiness." 
The results of conversion are witnessed in 
soul and body. It changes the disposition 
and temper. It produces gentleness, meek- 
ness, patience, love to God and man, faith 
and hope — all the virtues of life, and all the 
graces of religion. While it effects this, it also 
reforms the outer man. It delivers the body 
from the dominion of lust, and from those 
habits which are hurtful to the flesh. To 
such a renewing or transforming Paul refers, 
when he exhorts the Roman believers, " as ye 



RESULT OF Christ's resurrection. 83 

have yielded your members servants to un- 
cleanness, and to iniquity unto iniquity, even 
so now yield your members servants to right- 
eousness unto holiness." 

All this, too, is undergone symbolically by 
the Christian in baptism. In that, justifica- 
tion and a title to eternal life are exhibited. , 
In it we avow our reception of Jesus Christ 
as the Mediator between God and our souls. 
We trust in that sacrifice which He made on 
the cross. We hy faith die with Him, be- 
cause we unite ourselves to Him. We die to 
sin. We desire to forsake it. We commit 
ourselves to a new course of life. Old things 
are laid aside ; even as the youth puts away 
the toys of boyhood, now that he assumes the 
duties of manhood. So Paul delineates the 
change in that somewhat obscure passage, 
" Know ye not that so many of us as were 
baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into 
his death? Therefore, we are buried with 
him by baptism into death ; that like as Christ 
was raised up from the dead by the glory of 
the Father, even so^ w& also should walk in new- 
ness of life."* As the death and burial of 

* Rom. vi. 3-G 



84 RESUEEECTION OF THE DEAD, 

Christ are symbolically iindergone by us in 
baptism, so therein also we do interpretatively 
rise with him.t '^ For if we have been planted 
together in the likeness of his death (if by faith 
we die with Him on the cross, thus showing 
that we abjure our old life of sin), we shall be 
also in the likeness of his resurrection ; know- 
ing this, that our old man is crucified with 
him, that the hody of sin might be destroyed, 
that henceforth we should not. serve sin."* 
a The resemblance of Christ," says Dean 
Stanhope, " to which baptism brings us, im- 
plies a constant perseverance in our duty." 

Thus the believer receives an antepast of 
the i^erfect manhood, which he shall acquire in 
the resurrection. As he experiences the power 
of the Spirit in sanctifying his heart, and as he 
produces the fruits of godliness, and as he 
finds that '' body, soul and spirit" are increas- 
ingly brought under the law* of God, he may 
know that he is growing up " in the likeness 
of his resurrection ;" and that He hath the 
witness within himself, that He who hath be- 
gun the work will finish, and will raise him 
up at the last day* 

* Barrow. t Rom. vi. 3-6. 



RESULT OF CHRIST'S RESURRECTION. 85 

*' I am redeemed ! — the purchase of that blood 

Which on the cross was shed ; 
To God I'm reconciled, — my life renewed — 

My terrors all are fled. 
The scheme of mercy — Wisdom made it — 
The costly ransom — Love has paid it. 
I am redeemed ! 

" I am redeemed ! — my Saviour broke the band 

That chained me to the foe. 
The keys of hell were in his friendly hand, 

He shut its portals to. 
Now walk I free, secure of pardon ; 
From sin and Satan's weary burden 
I am redeemed ! 

**I am redeemed ! — what is there I should fear ? 

Death's gloom will beam with light ; 
The Lord of life for me will then appear, 

And lead to mansions bright. 
And though in dust my frame shall slumber, 
My sleeping dust he will remember. 
I am redeemed I" 

Let us bear in mind, as a solemn truth, 
that neither the cross, nor the resurrection 
of Christ, exempts the believer from all the 
consequences of sin. Though there be "no 
condemnation to them which are in Christ 
Jesus," yet they by no means pass free from 
the tribulations and sorrows which are asso- 
ciated with sin. They are made to feel that 



86 RESUEEECTION OF THE DEAD. 

*'the way of the transgressor is hard," even 
after he reforms. Sins, like old wounds, will 
pain at times. And so, while the resurrection 
of our Lord is a conquest over the grave, our 
enemy has a mighty power left. It is still 
true that the wages of sin is death. God 
has not abrogated that law. 

Death is the result of sin in a two-fold re- 
spect. On the one hand the result is spiritual 
death, a continuance in trespasses and sins, 
alienation from God, to which, after the judg- 
ment of the world, the second death is at- 
tached, together with the pains of hell for- 
ever. From this death the believer is freed. 
For he is redeemed by the blood of atone- 
ment. On the other hand, as the result of 
sin, which is so inrooted in human nature, we 
have the physical death, the disseverance of 
soul and body ; and not merely is there this 
dissolution, but also the state of a captived 
bound existence which follows. This is the 
victory of the grave to which Paul refers. 
Through ages that victory continues, while 
the body is corrupted in. the grave. During 
that intermediate state, which comprises the 
time between death and the resurrection, 



RESULT OF CHRIST'S RESURRECTION. 87 

death holds fast in his clutch that helpless 
body. This is the period of the believer's hu- 
miliation, before he ascends to final glorjr. 
During this season the soul is not in a state of 
torpor, but of active happiness. And yet it 
has not attained unto its highest measures of 
bliss. It is nak.edj as Paul says. It is tenant- 
less. Its earthly house is dissolved, but it can- 
not yet enter '' the building of God." It is 
v^idowed ; it has lost its partner. The believer 
may exclaim, *' to depart and be with Christ is 
far better." He may be '' willing rather to be 
absent from the body, and to be present with 
the Lord." And yet death despoils both soul 
and body, by keeping each from that com- 
pleteness to which they are capable of attain- 
ing. For " the soul during the intermediate 
state, cannot possibly constitute^ in the bibli- 
cal view, a complete man ; and the case re- 
quires, besides, that we should conceive of its 
relation to the body as still in force ; not abso- 
lutely destroyed, but only suspended. The 
whole condition is an intermission-state, and 
by no possibility of conception capable of being 
thought of as complete and final. When the 
resurrection body appears, it will not be as a 



88 RESUSRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

new frame abruptly created for the occasion, 
and brought to the soul in the way of out- 
ward addition and supplement. It will be 
found to' hold in strict organic continuity 
with the body as it existed before death, as 
the action of the same law of life ; which im- 
plies that this law has not been annihilated, 
but suspended only, in the intermediate state. 
In this character, however, it must be regard- 
ed as resting in some way (for where else could 
it rest ?) in the separate life, as it is called, of 
the soul itself; the slumbering power of the 
resurrection, ready at the proper time, in obe- 
dience to Christ's powerful word, to clothe 
itself with its former actual nature, in full 
identity with the form which it carried be- 
fore death, though under a far higher order 
of existence. Only then can the salvation of 
the soul be considered complete. All at last 
is one life; the subject of which is the to- 
tality of the believer's person, comprehending 
soul and body alike, from the beginning of 
the process to the end."^ 

It is announced to man that, as a punish- 

* Nevin's Mystical Science. 



RESULT OF CHEIST'S KESURRECTION. 89 

merit for sin, he is to return to dust ; '' and so 
death passed upon all men, for that all have 
sinned." All flesh crumbles to ashes. This 
befalls infant and adult. It overtakes saint 
and sinner. It is a chastisement, which even 
the redeemed must endure, v^hose " life is hid 
with Christ in Grod," because they still carry 
wdthin them the sinful nature. It is a chas- 
tisement, because it is an abruption of contin- 
uous development. It is a pause in the be- 
liever's career. It is a lengthening of the pe- 
riod of his pupilage beyond this life, and 
compelling him to wait longer and " groan" 
more for the completQ " adoption, to wit, the 
redemption of our body." It is a withhold- 
ing of the promised " possession," just as the 
fulfillment of the promise was kept from 
Abraham, who only tabernacled in a land 
which w^as his own by faith ; and yet all Grod 
permitted him to hold and keep was a grave. 
It is like David's seven years of waiting for 
the whole kingdom of Israel to become his 
realm. It is "the bondage of corruption," 
preceding " the glorious liberty of the child- 
ren of God." But this intermediate state is 
not to be regarded as a purgatory, a place of 



90 EESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

purification through sufFering, where the un- 
chastised transgressions of earth are to be 
atoned; nor as an embryo state, where the 
soul dozes away the ages ; but rather as a pe- 
riod in w4iich soul and body are divorced ; 
and therefore the soul exists and acts, so far 
as action is needed, without bodily media- 
tion ; and the individual continues in a mere 
spiritual existence, in the strict sense of the 
word. 

While this, then, is a period wherein man is 
shorn of the consummate bliss of the resur- 
rected state, and therefore is a season of in- 
completeness and nonage, it must not be re- 
garded in such a light as to cast a shadow 
over our hopes of the happy condition of the 
believer immediately after death. He is happy 
then as a spirit ; but he is not so happy as he 
will be when the body which lies in the grave 
shall be raised in glory. Perhaps we might 
designate his present state in the grave as a 
happy state, but that future state as glorious. 

Indeed, the inspired writers seem to take 
this view of man's future. Hence they have 
little to say of that period wherein the soul 
exists apart from the body ; but they dwell 



RESULT OF Christ's resurrection. 91 

with rapture upon that glorified state in which 
the believer's perfect manhood is attained in 
the union of soul and body. All their de-. 
scrip tions relate to this period ; and the inter- 
vening time is passed over pretty much in si- 
lence. Paul leaps over to this great event — 
the resurrection, as the consummation of the 
believer's happiness. The apostle does not 
tarry midway in heaven. He does not speak 
so much, if at all, of the bliss upon which 
those enter immediately after death, who fall 
asleep in Jesus. But the resurrection is the 
goal. That is the all-absorbing prize, which 
dazzles the eye. With that in mind he ex- 
horts Titus to live, '' looking for that blessed 
hope, even the glorious appearance of the great 
God our Saviour." This is the hope which 
he confesses before Felix he had toward God, 
"that there shall be a resurrection of the 
dead, both of the just and unjust." And 
w^hen recounting his religious experience to 
the Colossians, and also his hopes hereafter, he 
declares that his most ardent desire is not, 
mark you, to die and enter heaven, as believ- 
ers now-a-days express themselves- — '^ that I 
may know him, and the power of his resurrec- 



92 KESUERECTION OF THE DEAD, 

tion. * *= If by any means I might attain unto 
the resurrection of the dead^ This is that 
hope laid up in heaven. So he represents 
the redeemed as yearning for that event, 
" even we ourselves groan within ourselves, 
w^aiting for the adoption." What is this 
adoption ? a place in heaven, in the presence 
of the Father, secured when the spirit leaves 
the body ? That is not in the Apostle's mind, 
although true. He forecasts the consumma- 
tion of the adoption, and declares it to be 
" the redemption of our hody,^'^^ 

The immortality which is thus brought to 
light in the Gospel is associated with the re- 
surrection of the body. The immortality of 
the soul alone is scarcely mentioned. It is 
the whole man which is immortal. The immor- 
tality of revelation is that of soul and hodtj^ 
which is perfected in the resurrection. Hence 
the believer's highest state of bliss, hereafter, is 
made dependent upon the resurrection of his 
body. For, to recall Paul's logic, if there be no 
resurrection, then they " which are fallen asleep 
in Jesus are jpemAe^Z." And the most glow- 

* See, further, 1 Cor. i. 7, 8. 2 Cor. v. 1, 4. Col. iii. 3, 4. 



RESULT OF Christ's resurrection. 93 

ing descriptions of future happiness have the 
resurrection as the central object. So that 
the remark is strictly true, " the Christian faith 
in immortality is indissolubly connected with 
the promise of a future resurrection of the 
dead."* 

But if it be the believer's union to his Sav- 
iour which secures his resurrection, how may 
we account for the fact that the bodies of the 
wicked rise ? It has been denied that they 
do rise ; but several passages of the Scripture 
certainly prove their resurrection. Daniel 
speaks of some rising " to shame and ever- 
lasting contempt." Our Lord declared, *' they 
that have done evil shall come forth to the 
resurrection of damnation." Such was the 
belief of the Jews at that time, for Paul states 
in his speech before Felix, when the most 
prominent members of the Sanhedrim were 
present, "they themselves also allow that 
there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both 
of the just and unjust." And the language 
wherewith the final resurrection in Eevelation 
is described, leads to this conclusion. The 

* Muller's Christian Doctrine of Sin, Vol ii. p. 318. 



94: EESUREECTION OF THE DEAD. 

dead, small and greats stand before God. " The 
sea gave up the dead which were in it, and 
death and hell delivered np the dead which 
were in them," i. e., wherever the dead were 
they came forth. Why, then, do the bodies of 
the wicked rise ? So far as Christ's resurrec- 
tion secures theirs, we may venture this expla- 
nation. The work of redemption is a boon 
to those who are finally lost. The mediation 
of Jesus Christ is a blessing to all men. That 
the curse upon our first parents was not car- 
ried out to the full extent is due to the inter- 
cession of our Daysman. And we may refer 
the long-suffering and forbearance of God to 
wicked men to the same cause. While, 
therefore, the atonement of Christ does not save 
all men, it confers upon them many privi- 
leges, and retains for them many favors. And 
yet, such is the necessary result, these favors 
unimproved turn to woes. And in this way, 
that they aggravate the guilt of the trans- 
gressor. Indeed, this is a principle of human 
life. To enjoy the advantages of education 
and moral discipline, is a great privilege ; but 
if, in spite of these, one commits crime, he 
is a greater offender than the ignorant and de- 



RESULT OF CHEIST'S RESURRECTION. 95 

praved man who commits the same crime. 
In like manner, with the blessings accruing 
from Christ's death and resurrection unim- 
proved by men, they add to their tribulation 
and anguish. The resurrection of the body 
is designed as a precious bestowment of di- 
vine goodness, excelled only by the pardon of 
sin. But if the impenitent will not, by se- 
curing an interest in Christ, obtain the bless- 
ings of the resurrection, those which are 
blessings to others will be made sources of 
woe to them. They cannot avoid the resur- 
rection. Whether that resurrection shall be 
blissful or woful, depends upon our being 
made partakers of the covenant of grace. 
"As the death of all mankind came by 
Adam, so the resurrection of all mankind 
comes by Christ. The wicked shall be raised 
by His power, as their Lord and Judge; the 
righteous shall be raised by virtue of their 
union to Him as their head."'^ 

Another reason may be presented. Man is 
composed of spirit and body. That dis- 
tinguishes him from the angelic order of intelli- 

* Burkitt. 



96 EESUERECTION OF THE DEAD. 

gent beings. This distinction we have no 
reason to suppose is to be effaced. As in 
heaven the saint will be distinguished from 
holy angels by his glorified body, likewise in 
hell the wicked will be marked as belonging 
to the human race by his body. The body is 
a part of the creature man, never to be lost. 
Besides, the body participated in the first trans- 
gression. Through the ear the tempter whis- 
pered, " ye shall not surely die." The eye of 
Eve " saw that the tree was good for food." 
Her hand reached forth and plucked the fruit. 
Her lips parted to taste what God had for- 
bidden to eat. And then her voice persuaded 
Adam, and enticed him to unite with her in 
the common act of disobedience. And thus, 
ever since, both natures, the spiritual and the 
material, have concurred in the performance 
of actions which neither separately could 
have committed. In this mode the Word of 
God associates the flesh with sins of the soul. 
'' Your hands are defiled with blood, and your 
fingers with iniquity ; your li])s bave spoken 
lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness."* 

* Isaiah, lix. 3; see, also, Rom. iii. 13-15. 



RESULT OF Christ's resurrection. 97 

Now these actions of the body become amen- 
able to justice from the direction which they 
derive from the sphitual powers of the soul. 
And hence a resurrection of the body must be 
demanded by the moral and retributive jus- 
tice of God. The body is the arena of much 
of man's sins. It is filled with baits, and 
snares, and pitfalls, by which the spirit is in- 
veigled. And, therefore, this body must not 
only be raised, and judged with the soul, but 
also punished together with it. As soul and 
body associated during an earthly existence 
transgressed by concerted act, so associated 
throughout eternity they must suffer in com- 
pany. And as the glorified body of the saint 
enhances his powers of happiness, so the res- 
urrected body of the damned will only en- 
large their capacity for suffering. 

Oh ! what a motive does this view present 
why we should escape the wrath to come ! 
Dear reader, have you ever thought that the 
body you inhabit will be involved in the loss 
of your soul ? That body you cherish so 
much, that body to indulge which you are 
willing to sin, that body to provide for which 
you neglect the duties you owe God, that 
5 



98 EESUERECTION OF THE DEAD. 

body you take so much pride in adorning — 
will not alone one day become food for 
worms, but for the worm wliich never dieth. 
You 'may w^ell care for it now^, for this is all 
the kind treatment it wdll ever receive. You 
may well indulge it now, for it will never 
know what pleasure is hereafter. You may 
v/ell adorn it now, for it w^ill not rise from the 
grave a glorified body : it will never '' bear 
the image of the heavenly." A sad eternity 
aw^aits soul and hodj. Will you not avoid 
all this horror of agony by securing an inter- 
est in the atonement of Jesus Christ, and 
thereby have a polluted soul cleansed, and a 
body made the temple of the Holy Ghost ? 
In this light what a flood of meaning is thrown 
upon those pungent w^ords of our Lord, ''If 
thy right eye offend (is a cause of sin), pluck 
it out and cast it from thee : for it is profita- 
ble for thee that one of thy members should 
perish, and not that thy w^hole body should be' 
cast into hell. And if thy right hand ofiend 
thee, cut it off and cast it from thee : for it is 
profitable for thee that one of thy members 
should perish, and not that the whole body 
should be cast into hell." 



RESULT OF Christ's resurrecixok. 99 

Ob ! what a revelation of misery the re- 
surrection of the wicked unfolds ! While the 
Gospel presents a salvation, rich, and free, 
and adequate, and thus the religion of Jesus 
excels all others in its love, it also surpasses 
all others in the horror of the doom to which 
it consigns the lost man. Well may we ex- 
claim, in the words of another, ''if Christian- 
ity be true, it is tremendously true !" 



CHAPTER V. 



PHILOSOPHICAL OBJECTIONS TO A EESUREEC- 
. TION.. 

But some man will eay, how a^e the dead raised tip? Why 
should it he thought a thing incredible witb you, that God should 
raise the dead ?— 1 Cor. xy. 35 ; Acts, xxvi. 8. 

Sure the same power 
That reared the piece at first, and took it down, 
Can re-assemble the loose, scattered parts, 
And put them as they w^ere. 

The believer in the inspiration of the Bible 
need not fear the sciences. Natural Philosophy, 
Chemistry, Geology, Astronomy, never have 
and never will contradict Holy Writ. Their 
haughty advocates, who in their purblind admi- 
ration of nature, failed to perceive nature's God, 
have sometimes boasted that the records in 
the Scriptuiies and among the stars and on 
the rocks clashed irreconcilably. But deeper 
research has always brought them into so 
100 



OBJECTIONS TO A EESUREECTION. 101 

plain an accord, as to furnish additional testi- 
mony that " the word of the Lord endureth 
forever." The \^iarning of the most learned 
of the apostles is peculiarly applicable to our 
times, " Beware lest any man spoil you 
through "philosopJnj and vain deceit^ after the 
traditions of men, after the elements of the 
world, and not after Christ ^ 

The first thoughts on the resurrection of 
the dead present almost insuperable objec- 
tions; but the more examination is bestowed 
upon the doctrine, and what is really included 
in it, the less do we discover what seems to 
be impossible or absurd. The larger portion 
of the difficulties arise from our ideas of mat- 
ter, and in what is required to constitute the 
same body. " How are the dead raised up ? 
and wath what body do they come?" These 
are two natural questions, which were asked 
in the apostle's day, and which will occur to 
every mind. 

We are to consider what arguments reason 
has to urge for and against this doctrine. At 
once w^e enter the realm of matter^ a kingdom 
which man has been exploring for ages. Not 



102 RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

the gold fields of California, nor the oil terri- 
tory of Pennsylvania has a larger number of 
investigators. And yet, after all this search, 
the properties of matter are little understood 
— almost each year some new and strange 
thing is discovered. And it is remarkable 
that these revelations of the hidden powers of 
matter bring ns neare"^ the Deity ^ so that we are 
able to trace in deeper lines His handiwork, 
His goodness, and His consideration for man. 
At the very outset, then, we must bear in 
mind that we by no means understand all the 
properties of matter. In yonder field there 
graze on the same grass, and breathe the same 
air, a sheep, a horse, and a hog. But the same 
grass and atmosphere produce wool on one, 
hair on another, and bristles on the third. 
How is this ? No searcher of nature's laws 
has yet been able to discover which of the 
original substances, into which philosophers 
distribute matter, it is that constitutes the 
bones, the muscles, the arteries, and the blood 
of his physical system. These and a thou- 
sand other mysterious operations of matter 
around us, ought to render us cautious in our 
assertions, as to what may be possible. 



OBJECTIONS TO A SESURRECTIOaST. 103 

No more clearly can we decide what are all 
the effects of death. Certain results it pro- 
duces upon the body, but what other results 
we cannot determine. Just here Paul estab- 
lishes his argument from analogy. You put 
a grain of wheat into the ground. It has 
none of the evidences of veo:etable life. It is 
hard and dry. You may keep it one year, or 
ten years. Then it is planted. It rots. It 
disappears almost as much as does a human 
body. In itself there is no prospect that it 
will show signs of life. Now show this rot- 
ted husk and kernel to one who, though well 
versed in geology, knows nothing of the 
process of growth, and tell him that from 
this corrupt mass will arise a curious plant, 
stretching upward three or four feet, and pro- 
ducing tv>^enty or thirty kernels of wheat, and 
you assert as starthng a fact to him as the res- 
urrection of the body can possibly be to any 
of us. The same difficult}^ would present 
itself to his mind which presses on ours — 
how can this he ? It seems unreasonable. It 
is wholly contrary to the lavv^'s of geology. 
Yes ! but it is not contrary to the laws of 
vegetable life. We err whenever we transfer 



104 EESUEEECTION OF THE DEAD. 

the principles of geology, or philosophical 
reasoning to vegetable life. Each has its dis- 
tinctive sphere and properties. We can know 
the properties of each only by observation. 
In like manner we can know how little or how 
much death destroys of the human frame 
only when the end of all things has come. 

Now, men make a similar mistake when 
they apply to the resurrection of the body 
the ^rinciiiles of natural science. For as there 
is a special principle in a seed, which through 
the process of decay springs into vegetable 
life, so there may be a principle in the human 
body which, through the corruption of the 
grave and by the power of God, shall cause 
it to emerge into a spiritual body. Paul's ar- 
gument is that death does not necessarily de- 
stroy, but that ^-organization through death 
is a necessary condition of rc-organization for a 
new and nobler life. Death is not annihila- 
tion, but a passing from one state of existence 
unto another. This we believe to be the case 
with the souL And yet why do we believe 
it? Almost solely on, the word of God, Why, 
then, should v/e hesitate to receive a co-ordi- 
nate doctrine of the Bible, that of the resur- 



OBJECTIONS TO A EESURRECTION. 105 

rection of the body ? Can any man show that 
death is less destructive to the soul than it is 
to the body? We put the body into a grave 
and see it no more. In time it wholly disap- 
pears from sight. But the soul disappeared 
at death. Now, if the soul be immortal while 
unseen, why may not the body have a new 
life some day? 

Life is a subtle thing. In a tomb in Egypt, 
a few years ago, a small quantity of wheat 
was discovered in a jar by the side of a mum- 
my, where it had lain, probably, three thou- 
sand years. A few kernels were planted, and 
they grew. Hence several thousand years 
had not destroyed their vitality. There is a 
reptile which you may divide into a score of 
parts, but, instead of destroying the creature, 
each part grows into another animal, precisely 
like the one which was divided. Watch that 
loathsome caterpillar as it lazily crawls from 
leaf to leaf To one of the leaves it fastens 
itself, and then weaves its shroud. And there, 
in its tomb, it turns to the chrysalis. Exam- 
ine it. There is nothing to attract attention. 
It seems to be a dead worm. But by and by 
5# 



106 RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

out flies a beautiful butterfly, its body covered 
with the softest down, and its wings painted 
with matchless tints. Now, with these won- 
ders of vegetalleand animal life existing before 
us, shall our reason stagger at another wonder 
in human life ? If the vitality of a seed can 
be preserved through three thousand years, if a 
reptile cut to pieces is not destroyed, if a worm 
is transmigrated into a beautiful insect, may 
not the human body be kept three thousand 
years or more, even amid its decayed atoms ? 
and may not another body arise from them, as 
well as a beauteous insect from the carcase of 
a worm ? 

Nature not only shows us how ivonderful 
are the manifestations of life, she also fur- 
nishes types and specimens of a resurrection ; 
thus affording evidence that the thing itself ^5 
possible. There is a flower, which to all ap- 
pearance was withered when it was taken 
from the bosom of an enbalmed Egyptian 
princess, found in one of the vaults contain- 
ing the remains of Coptic royalty. It is, to 
all appearance, a dry, dead substance, resemb- 
ling the flattened head of a poppy, or the cup 
of to acorn, with a short, woody stem. But 



OBJECTIONS TO A RESUERECTION. 107 

upon placing the stem in water, the corolla 
begins to expand, like a sunflower or dahlia, 
and in the course of fifteen minutes it will 
not only unfold, but it will turn its en- 
tire leaves backward, until they hang down- 
ward in a fringe, like the passion-flower, 
leaving an exquisite purple heart exposed, 
and forming a blossom of symmetrical 
beauty. Eemoved from the water it soon be- 
gins to fold up its petals, and presently be- 
comes a withered flower. And thus it remains 
a day, a month, a year, nntil '^ through scent 
of water" it again revives. It appropriately 
bears the name of the "• Kesurrection Flower." 
One of these has thus blossomed eight or nine 
hundred times. Similar to this is the Eose of 
Jericho. Dried np by the burning suns and 
parching air of its native clime, it contracts 
into a ball. The wind detaches it from the 
spot where its slender roots had fixed it, and 
rolls it over the plain to indefinite distances. 
Thus it lies apparently dead and decaying. 
But when it is blown upon some spot of mois- 
ture, its roots take hold, its leaves drink up the 
juices of the soil, and are unfolded, and a flower 
like a rose opens, as if awakened from sleep. 



108 RESUREECTION OF THE DEAD. 

You have noticed the roadside puddle, with 
its countless animalculae. What becomes of 
them when the water is dried up by the heat 
of summer? Do they perish? How is it, 
then, that w^hen rain descends, straightway the 
water teems again with them ? They did not 
perish. They dried up with the departing 
moisture ; but their dust was susceptible of 
life. This has been proved by direct experi- 
ment. Take one of these, the daphina, or 
water-flea, from the baked sediment. It is dry 
and apparently dead. Touch it with a point 
of a needle, and it splinters like a bit of burnt 
paper. Now place to it a drop of water, and 
observe the change. As soon as the tissues 
become completely moistened, you notice a 
slight action, which by degrees increases as 
life is diflused throughout the whole body, 
and you behold heart, lungs, and intestines in 
action as vigorous as ever. The celebrated 
chemist, Ehrenberg, kept similar animals in 
this state three years, and then revived them 
by water. What is thus done in nature on a 
small scale, is yet to be done in Providence in 
a stupendous manner. These are some of the 
hidden things of nature. Yet let us not in> 



OBJECTIONS TO A EESUERECTION. 109 

agine we have discovered all she has to reveal. 
But surely nature has already disclosed enough 
to rebuke sternly the slowness of men to believe 
all that God hath written, because some things 
seem mysterious, and.even impossible. " "With 
the daily and hourly miracles (so to call them) 
of the vegetable and animal world, before our 
eyes, with creations, renovations, transitions, 
and transmigrations innumerable going on, 
while yet individuality and identity are pre- 
served, nothing ought to be thought incredi- 
ble, or even unlikely, concerning the destiny 
of man, w^hich comports with these wonders, 
and w^hich in itself is only an analogous trans- 
formation."* And yet " our faith and hope 
rest upon* the affirmation of Heaven itself ; 
not upon the soundness of philosophical spec- 
ulations, or even demonstrations, if such could 
be obtained. It is not as theorists, but as 
believers, that we look for another life."t 



But there is something more than death 
which must be considered in the resurrection 



^ Physical Theory of Another Life, by J. Taylor, 
t Taylor's Physical Theory. 



110 RESUERECTION OF THE DEAD. 

of the body, and which greatly increases the 
difficulties of the doctrine. Says the dis- 
believer, how can the dead come from their 
graves when they are not there ? The body 
reverts to dust, and that is dissolved into the 
original elements of which it is composed, and 
these elements enter again into combinations 
with the tree, the shrub, and grass ; and these 
are grazed upon by herds and flocks. All the 
dead do not repose beneath the sod with their 
ashes undisturbed. Many of the human race 
have been devoured by wild beasts. Others, 
as martyrs, have been burned at the stake, 
and their ashes cast into rivers. Thousands 
of widows have been consumed, in India, on 
the funeral piles of their husbands. Millions 
have been deposited in the catacombs of 
Egypt ; vast numbers of these dried mum- 
mies have been used for the purpose of fuel in 
the dwellings of the natives, or for firing en- 
gines on railways. Consider, also, battle-fields. 
Take, for example, Waterloo. Thousands 
were interred there merely beneath the sur- 
face, and for years the ploughshare turned up 
human bones. These bodies decayed, and 
successive crops of wheat have grown luxuri- 



OBJECTIONS TO A RESURRECTION. Ill 

aritly upon that field, into which the chemical 
properties of those bodies entered. That 
wheat was ground into flour, and that flour 
, was consumed by men and women. Where 
now shall we find the ashes of these bodies ? 
How, from the thousands into which these 
slain bodies have entered, can the constituent 
elements of each be selected ? This we admit 
to be a serious difficulty, and one which lies 
entirely beyond the reach of human investi- 
gation. 

But let us bear in mind that these are the 
exceptional cases. And exceptions always em- 
body the difficulties of a principle. The vast 
majority of the dead lie undisturbed in the 
earth, and their ashes, though undistinguish- 
able from surrounding earth, yet retain their 
chemical, or resurrection qualities, from which 
God shall work out the new body. Shall we 
doubt a doctrine, because we cannot under- 
stand certain cases which constitute excep- 
tions ? 

But if we are assailed by reason, we can 
meet hypothesis by hypothesis. If the objector 
presents his conjecture against the doctrine, 
the believer can present his conjecture in its 



112 RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

favor. Well then, the atoms of these bodies 
are scattered. But philosophy admits that 
nothing is ever lost. It only changes form, 
or enters into new combinations. These scat- 
tered atoms of the bodies now under consid- 
eration are somewhere. Take, for example, 
the slain of Waterloo. May not a iiortion of 
each body buried there yet remain in the 
ground ? It cannot be proved that the suc- 
cessive crops of wheat consumed all the par- 
ticles of those bodies. The lime and ammo- 
nia, which those bodies furnished to the wheat, 
do not comprise all that constitutes the hu- 
man frame. There may be in that blood- 
soaked soil portions of each body which no 
vegetation can extract, which neither sun- 
shine, frost, electricity, nor any other agency 
of which we know^, can destroy or affect. 

Take, again, the ashes of the martyrs thrown 
amid the waves. A part of that ashes sunk 
and reposed on the bottom of the stream. It 
is somewhere in that river to this day — along 
the shores, or deposited at its mouth. Grant 
that only a small imrt of each martyr's body 
is thus preserved, yet who can determine how 
^little will suffice to reconstruct the body ? 



OBJECTIONS TO A EESUREECTION. 113 

He who formed the body out of pure earth at 
first, certainly can re-create a body out of a 
portion of its ashes. He who does the 
greater can perform the less. 

Take, lastly, a human body devoured by 
a wild animal. The difficulty presented in 
this case may be met by two replies — 1. The 
bones or skeleton are not devoured. That re- 
mains and returns to its ov^^n dust, and from 
that God may re-construct the body. 2. But 
even the part devoured may not lose its iden- 
tity. It enters into the stomach, and a part into 
the flesh and blood of the animaL But it 
does not continue there. The animal, like 
man, is ever throwing off particles from his 
system. Who, then, can say that atoms of 
the human body which have been devoured 
may not get out in this mode ? — may not be 
filtered through that flesh and skin, and lodg- 
ing somewhere in earth, or taking on some 
fixed form, or even rolling about like the 
dried rose of Jericho, they may abide until 
the last trump shall again set them in motion ? 
How can w^e know but that Grod so watches 
a portion of the dust of every human being, 
and so preserves it amid all its transformations, 



114 KESUERECTION OF THE JJEAB 

as that it shall never constitute a part of any 
other body, when that body is dead ? 

We do not know how the body, in the hour 
of resurrection, may get together its particles 
It may call them out of the atmosphere, and 
from the floods, as well as from mother earth. 
Take an illustration of Paul's suggestion. A 
seed is planted in the soil. It sprouts, it 
growls, it blooms, it yields. Now w^here does 
it get material for all this ? Not from the 
seed, for that was merely the starting point. 
Not alone from the soil, but also, and largely, 
as has been proved by direct experiment, from 
the air, the rain, and the sun. Surrounding 
nature f Wilis] les the supply. If God, then, does 
all this for a phmt — a mere plant — may He 
not for man's body, which he fabricated first 
with His own hands ? In this revivification 
of the body, may not surrounding nature ren- 
der back that which she received from the body ? 
Are we to look only under the sod for man's 
remains ? Now for the possibility of all this, 
philosophy herself can be put on the stand as 
a witness, for she claims that nothing is ever 
lost. 

These may be regarded as idle speculations. 



OBJECTIONS TO A EESURRECTION. 115 

They are speculations^ but not idle. For when 
we are confronted by philosophical surmises, 
we may meet them in a similar mode. And 
thus it may be shown that neither philosophy^ 
nor science, nor reason, can present greater 
difficulties against the resurrection of the dead 
than in Tcind are continually overcome in na- 
ture. Nor is it useless to dwell on these. 
For precisely these objections are thrust for- 
ward as a reason why we should discredit the 
doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. AVe 
need not hesitate to take our stand outside of 
the Bible ; not to prove the doctrine, but to 
show that it furnishes nothing contradictory 
to reason or to science. 

Besides these philosophical difficulties, dis- 
believers have made random and erroneous 
statements, wherewith to perplex the faith of 
some. One of these is inserted here as a speci- 
men of the false grounds upon which very 
many objections rest, which are urged against 
this revelation of the Scriptures. A few years 
ago there was an Essay in an American Re- 
view {Democratic^ of 1847), attempting, by 
scientific arguments, to disprove the possibil- 



116 KESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

ity of a resurrection. One argument was this. 
"If a resurrection of all who have lived 
should take place, their numbers would cover 
the whole surface of the earth in one solid 
mass to a height of miles in thickness." 
Now, so far from this bemg the case, the real 
fact is, that the earth would hold ten thousand 
times more than have ever lived. By arith- 
metical computation it may be shown that the 
whole past generations of man could stand 
comfortably, side by side, on one third of the 
area of the State of Virginia, allotting to each 
person three square feet. And so far from a 
necessity for piling them in solid mass upon 
the whole surface of the globe, a single 
shower of rain over the same State, mieasuring 
two and three-tenths inches by the rain-gauge, 
would be equal in mass to all the matter con- 
tained in the bodies of the entire multitude. *- 

Let it then be distinctly borne in mind, that 
whatever difSculties seem to clog the doc- 
trine of the resurrection of the dead, they are 
neither greater in themselves, noranore in 

* Bibliotlieca Sacra, 1852, p. 15. 



OBJECTIONS TO A RESURRECTION. 117 

number, than we encounter in the common 
operations of nature. It is only the contin- 
ual repetition of these processes, in which lie 
the mysteries of nature, that lessens our as- 
tonishment, so that we behold, with perfect 
indifference, wonders which, if they occurred 
but seldom, or were matters of pure revela- 
tion, we should contemplate almost with in- 
credulity. As great difficulties, therefore, lie 
on the side of those events which already 
have taken place, as can be found in the doc- 
trine of the resurrection. To some of these 
we have already referred. 

To call in question things which are strange, 
and the like of w^hich we havfe never seen, is 
to doubt nine-tenths of the wonders of crea- 
tion. You are walking upon the sands of 
Africa, and pick up what at first appears to 
be a large pebble. Upon examination it 
proves to be an egg. As you are gazing upon 
it a native approaches, and informs you that 
out of that shell will come a thing of life, a 
bird, who shall be so diverse from all other 
birds you have ever seen, as that, while it 
shall have little power to fly, it shall attain a 
speed in running unmatched by the swiftest 



118 EESUEEECTION OF THE DEAD. 

racer. Had you no corroboration of this state- 
ment, you would doufet the account. It would 
be incredible and contrary to all you had ever 
known of birds. So, when I look into the 
grave and behold nothing but dust, God tells 
me that out of that dust will come a body, 
so much like the body laid there as to be 
called the same body — need my faith stagger ? 
My faith does not falter when I see the ostrich 
. egg, because I am certified by others that 
such a bird will come of it, although I have 
never seen the process, nor the bird. Now, 
how can I, how dare I, disbelieve that a hu- 
man body will come out of that dust, when, 
although I have never seen it, nor understand 
the mode, God tells me it shall be ? Is, then, 
the presumption against the resurrection of 
the dead any stronger than against many a 
process or law which God adopts in the 
changes of the physical, intellectual and 
moral worlds ? Suppose that we cannot trace 
out the connection between the body that 
dies, and the body which is to be raised. 
Does this prove anything more than that 
mankind always have been, and are now, 
most profoundly ignorant V All these, and 



OBJECTIONS TO A EESUREECTION. 119 

similar objections, resolve themselves into 
the question of God'^s power. If He be 
almighty, it must be difficult to set limits to 
his power. If He' had only to speak, and from 
the confusion of chaos emerged this beautiful 
earth, w^ith its teeming populations of crea- 
tures, all harmonious in order, and exquisite 
specimens of superhuman wisdom, there is, 
surely, nothing impossible, nor improbable, 
nor hard to believe in the doctrine, that all the 
millions which now or hereafter shall sleep 
in the dust of the earth will spring to life 
again by the interposition of the same power. 
Indeed, Paul places the possibility and cer- 
tainty of the resurrection on this very ground. 
" Who shall change our vile body, that it may 
be fashioned like unto his glorious body 
(how?), according to the worJcing wherehj he is 
able even to subdue all things unto himself. ^'^^ 

"What though my body run to dust, 
FaiVii cleaves uuto it, counting every grain, 

With an exact and most particular trust, 
Reserving all for flesh again." 

* Phil, iii. 21. 



CHAPTER VL 



NATURE OF THE RESURRECTION-BODY. 

" With what body do they come ?" 

" This corruption must put on incorruption, and this mortal must 
put on immortality.— 1 Cor. xv, 33, 53. 

" Go to thy quiet resting". 

Poor tenement of clay ! 
From all thy pain and weakness 

I gladly haste away ; 
But still in faith confiding 

To find thee yet again, 
All glorious and immortal. 

Good night, till then !" 

What the Bible teaches, and Paul specifi- 
cally treats of in his well known chapter on 
the resurrection, is not any obstruse and meta- 
physical doctrine concerning mind and mat- 
ter, but the simple physiological fact of two 
species of corporeity destined for man. The 
first is that of our present animal and perish- 
able organization, which is of the earth, 
120 



RESUREECTION-BODY. 121 

earthy, and which we share, as a fleshly struc- 
ture, with the sentient tribes around us. The 
second is a future spiritual structure, imper- 
ishable and endowed with higher powers and 
many desirable prerogatives. And in enter; 
ing upon an inquiry concerning this latter, 
we cannot but express ourselves in the lan- 
guage of Isaac Taylor : " Nothing can be 
more absurd than the supposition that any 
efforts of the mind, how strenuous soever, can 
enable it to conceive, even in the faintest 
manner, of a mode of existence essentially and 
totally unlike our actual mode of life, for this 
were to imagine ourselves to be endowed with a 
real creative faculty." Hence in our inquiries 
into the nature of the spiritual body we must 
keep as close to the earthly as may be, while 
investing the heavenly tabernacle with the 
highest advantages. *' On a line of conjec- 
ture like this," to quote the same author, 
" sobriety may be mistress of our course, nor 
need we set a single step without a sufficient 
reason for the direction we take." And on 
this " line " we are permitted inferences not 
alone from analogy, or a similarity of rela- 
tions, but like^vise from anomalies, or a dis- 
6 



122 EESUEEECTION 0¥ THE DEAD. 

similarity of relation. Most fortunately we 
are not left to bare conjecture, for Paul gives 
a few outlines of the new corporeity, which 
furnish valuable information regarding, at 
least, the general conditions of the resurrec- 
tion body. " Now this I say, brethren, that 
flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of 
God ; neither doth corruption inherit incor- 
ruption." *'Itis sown in corruption, it is 
raised in incorruption ; it is sown in dishonor, 
it is raised m glory ; it is sown in weakness, 
it is raised in power ; it is sown a natural 
body, it is raised a spiritual body." In an- 
other Epistle he tells us that the body is " to 
be fashioned like unto his (Cinist's) glorious 
body." 

From these descriptions we learn that the 
resurrection-body will be immortal, glorious, 
'powerful, and spiritual. 

It will be immortal. The body is to be 
raised in incorruption. There will not be 
anything in its constitution upon which cor- 
ruption can fasten. There will be no mate- 
rial for sickness or disease to prey upon. There 
will be no possibility of disorganizing any of 



EESURRECTION-BODY. 123 

its atoms, and thus preparing the way for dis- 
solution and decay. And as there will be 
nothing about it destructible, it must be im- 
mortal. For that matter which has in its 
composition no seed that can ever produce 
destruction, must continue as it is, until inter- 
fered with by an external power. But as God 
will never thus interfere, nor allow any creature 
to interfere with man's new body, it must con- 
tinue forever just as it is raised. " The ani- 
mal body is not only mechanically divisible, 
and destructible, and easily injured, but it is 
also incessantly preying upon itself, and it 
speedily dissolves unless sustained by assimi- 
lative materials. This liability to dissolution 
and to external violence, necessarily involves 
keen sensibilities and powerful appetites ; and 
it also demands an instinctive dread of death. 
# # # Instead of all this, let us imagine a 
coi-poreal frame, indestructible and indivisible ; 
vital without waste, and therefore needing no 
pabulum, or none but such as might be sup- 
plied in a manner analogous to that in which 
the animal body derives support from the 
atmosphere, and from light and heat. Such a 
body would need no dread of dissolution; 



124 RESUEEECTION OF THE DEAD. 

nor would it have its cravings, its appetites, 
or its sensual propensity ; or to say all in a 
word, it would have no welfare of its own to 
care for, or to assert. Instead of an importu- 
nate controversy, never well adjusted, and 
never brought to a conclusion between body 
and spirit, there would be, on the one side, 
the sheer passivity of a tool or engine ; and 
on the other side, the unchecked supremacy 
of a superior nature. There would be one 
class of interests, only, to be thought of, and 
only one class of occupation to be followed."* 
The resurrection-body will never die. There 
will be no silent house for it, but the build- 
ing of God, the mansion prepared by Jesus 
Christ. The grave is behind it, and not be- 
fore it as in this life. And the mind can fore- 
cast through endless ages, and be assured that 
then the soul shall be dwelling in the same 
body. Perennial beauty will invest it with 
unvarying charms. No lines of sorrow shall 
be chiseled on the brow. It shall never 
hunger any more, neither thirst any more. 



* Taylor's Physical Theory of Another Life, pp. 100 
and 101. 



EESURRECTION-BODY. 125 

The sun shall not smite it by day. No cold 
nor heat shall bring discomfort. Eyes shall 
never weep, nor ears be pained by evil tidings. 
No gray hairs, like the clock striking the 
hours of midnight, shall warn of a life pass- 
ing away. Eternity will be the measure of 
its years. All these distresses and marrings 
of the body, which are the concomitants of 
sin, shall be unknown in that " temple of the 
Holy Grhost." For "the former things are 
passed away." 

*' All our sorrows left below, 
And earth exchanged for Heaven." 

2. The resurrection-body will be gloriom. 
In what respect we cannot determine ; but it 
will be a noble, lovely body, adorned with 
every charm that a wise and beneficent Crea- 
tor can bestow. It shall be like Christ's 
" glorified body." Everything having the 
least resemblance to the dishonor and vileness 
w^hich attend human flesh, shall be purged 
away in the grave. The gold so long mixed 
wdth dross, will then be pure. The fine gold, 
dimmed now by the exhalations of earth, and 
the noisome breath of lust and sin, and weak- 



126 RESUKEECTIOJ^ OF THE DEAD. 

nesses of the flesh, will then shine forth, like 
the gold of heaven which is as clear as 
crystal, and reflect, like the many-sided prism, 
the glorious hues of celestial excellencies. 
That body will be adapted to a world of per- 
fection. There will be no remains of former 
deficiencies to remind even Gabriel how that 
body once appeared when he saw it on earth. 
For it will rank with angels in loveliness. 
Not like a prodigal who has come home re- 
pentant, yet with scars of the former career, 
only covered by the new robe ; on the con- 
trary, it, " like the King's daughter, is all glo- 
rious within ;" and by its peerless beauty it 
will grace the household of God as the young- 
est daughter of creation. With dignity and 
splendor and all excellence, as an heir of 
glory, it will move among the " sons of God," 
emulous for the divine honor, and aglow with 
burning and untiring zeal in the Father's ser- 
vice. It will be humanity in its noblest type 
— fashioned like to Christ's glorious body. 

" Soul and body shall His glorious image bear." 

What more can be said to describe its 
grandeur? " There will be a family resem- 



RESURRECTIOX-BODY. 127 

blance to the Elder Brother, bodily and spir- 
itually. We know that when He shall appear 
we shall be like Him. Some of our loveliest 
garden flowers are grafts from wdld plants in 
brake and forest, thicket and hedgerow. So 
beauteous are these transplants as almost to 
belie their pedigree. Their perfect tints, and 
symmetrical forms, and sweet perfume, how- 
ever, prove the culture and development of 
wdiich the plant or flower in its native state 
was capable. So shall it be in a far higher 
and nobler sense w^ith flowers transplanted into 
the garden above. The glorified body ! how 
immeasurably w^ill it transcend, in physical 
and moral beauty, the old earthly tabernacle ! 
Sown in dishonor, raised in glory. Glorious 
body indeed ! without sin, without pain, with- 
out weakness, or weariness or infirmity."* 

3. The resurrection-body will be 'powerful. 
"It is raised in power," says Paul. This does 
not signify that God will raise the body in a 
powerful manner — although that is strictly 
true — for the Apostle is describing with what 
body the dead shall come ; they shall come 

* McDuff, Grapes of Eschol. 



128 EESUEEECTION OF THE DEAD. 

with a 'powerful body. We are not to asso- 
ciate superhuman strength with this term, as 
though the saints are to be a second race of 
Samsons, endowed with enormous physical 
strength, although it is highly probable that 
the future body will have the power of per- 
forming many things which we would now 
regard as miraculous. It will be enabled to 
move with greater celerity from point to point. 
It will be without that sense of bulk which 
oppresses us. Whether it will be capable of 
passing from world to world through space 
as do the angels, is questionable ; for then 
man would seem to lose his distinctive place 
as composed of soul and body, and be merged 
into the angel. 

The power of the resurrection-body is mostly 
to be regarded as the opposite of the infirmity 
and weakness which are so characteristic of 
these present bodies. For are we not greatly 
impeded, worried and afflicted by our inabili- 
ties ? When we would '' do good," even in 
the body, the flesh is too weak. It tires very 
soon. It must have many hours for sleep. 
It must halt in the very midst of its best 
deeds and refresh. It tries to do things which 



RESURRECTION-BODY, 129 

it cannot. It is easily overtasked. Like a 
little ant with a large crumb, we tug, and toil, 
and weary ourselves at life's tasks, and move 
slowly on toward completion. Oh ! if we 
could always do our work unhampered by 
the infirmities of the flesh ; if we could apply 
ourselves to our duties with untiring diligence, 
how often would what is now a labor, be- 
come a pleasure ? This we believe is just 
thdit power which the resurrection-body will 
possess. It will never find any allotted duty 
taxing its strength. It shall never need rest. 
For it will be in a world where there is no 
fatigue nor lassitude ; where heat never re- 
laxes the sinew, and where the inhabitants 
never say, " I am sick ;" but where there shall 
be ample power to perform promptly and 
easily all that God requires. 

** God himself in that blest place, 
Shall a glorious body give me ; 

I shall see his blissful face, 
To his heavens he will receive me ; 

To his joyful presence raise, 

Ever upon Christ to gaze ! 

" Then these eyes my Lord shall know, 
My Redeemer and my Brother ; 
6* 



130 EESUERECTION OF THE DEAD. 

In his love my soul shall glow, — 

I myself and not another ! 
Then from this rejoicing heart, 
Every weakness shall depart 

" What is weak or maimed below, 

There shall be made strong and free ; 

Earthly is the seed we sow, 
Heavenly shall the harvest be ; 

Nature here, and sin ; but there, 

Spiritual all and fair !" 



4. The resurrection-body will be spiritual^ 
" a spiritual-BOBY.^^ It will not be a ghostly, 
vapory object or image, which can neither be 
touched nor held, like the shades with which 
classic poets peopled Hades. It is spiritual 
as distinguished from flesh and blood. Spirit- 
ual body represents an idea of which we can 
have little or no comprehension, and for which 
we can find no illustration, since spirit and 
body seem to us directly contrary. Paul's 
illustration, however, may remove a shade of 
the obscurity. He declares '' there is a nat- 
ural body, and there is a spiritual body ;" or, 
as it may be rendered, " there is a body of 
the animal life, and there is a body of the 
spirit. ^^ Which is to say — as there is on 



RESURRECTION-BODY. 13 1 

earth a body adapted to this present animal 
life, so there will be a body just as well fitted 
for a spiritual life. In this world spirit is 
subservient to flesh ; but in that future state 
the body will be subservient to the spirit, not 
in that the body will be converted into spirit, 
but because it will yield itself with the high- 
est and most wonderful facility of complying 
with the spirit. For that body not only will 
not be such as we now have in the best pos- 
sible health, but not even such as man had 
before he sinned : which, although it was per- 
fect in itself, yet required aliment, not as yet 
being spiritual, for man then carried an ani- 
mal and earthly body. 

And w^e can here reason from the known 
to the unknown, and affirm, that, as the pres- 
ent structure of flesh is suited for the duties 
and the existence of man while oii earth, and 
— saving the disqualifications which originate 
in sin — performs its work well, so will the 
future body be adapted to the duties and 
mode of existence that shall be in the spirit- 
ual world. And, further, that as this body 
exhibits in its framework and organs tlie 
wonderful wisdom and skill of the Creator,^ in 



132 RESUERECTION OF THE DEAD. 

fchus qualifying it for earth ; so will that res- 
urrection-body be an equal manifestation of 
the divine goodness and wisdom. Without 
irreverent conjecture, we may suppose that 
this spiritual body will possess new powers 
and susceptibilities of enjoyment, in addition 
to those which may be retained from this 
present life. For our existence here, as com- 
pared with our development hereafter, is but 
little in advance of childhood. In a finer and 
more complete bodily organization will be a 
correspondent enlargement of the mental fac- 
ulties and powers. There may be inlets to 
that spiritual body for the operation of intel- 
lectual and religious exercises, which exer- 
cises are now dormant, because there is no or- 
gan through which they can operate. For 
example, a man deprived of eyesight has a 
mind as susceptible as others of receiving im- 
pressions of beauty, but having no organ to 
be the medium of their conveyance, he lacks 
the pleasure which his fellows enjoy. And 
hereafter, by means of a more perfect bodily 
structure than the present, the redeemed may 
have the way opened for new sources of ex- 
alted enjoyment, waking into energy dormant 



EESURRECTION-BODY. 133 

powers of which we are now as unconscious 
as the deaf are of the sweets of music, or the 
blind are of the beauties of nature, or the child 
is of the intellectual pleasures of the scholar. 
New capabilities will be conferred, which on 
earth have been longed for, ^ but never pos- 
sessed. Who has not experienced a most 
tantalizing failure of the perceptive faculty 
just when a theme was opening before the 
mind ; so thai a fog arose before the mental 
vision, when the landscape was beginning to 
glow w^ith the beauties of the rising sun of 
patient thought ? What pious heart has not 
been harassed by an inability to fix the mind 
upon its devotions, and to keep out wander- 
ing thoughts, which like vermin infest the se- 
cret chambers of the soul ? How often has a 
wearied body or a dull brain rendered relig- 
ious acts insipid performances.! Now not 
alone will the redeemed be relieved from all 
such disabilities ; but their spiritual body will 
conduce to a higher sphere of intellectual and 
religious enjoyment. There can be no doubt 
but that the resurrection-body will greatly 
enhance the happiness of the saint, so that 
the highest fruition to which he is destined 



134 RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

will not be attained until " lie is clothed upon 
with our house which is from heaven." 

We may infer that the spiritual body will 
have none of the vital functions which char- 
acterize the present body, and that it will be 
so much like a spirit as to exist without food. 
It will not have the peculiar physical organ- 
ization of flesh and blood, bones, sinew, veins, 
and nerves, which constitute this tabernacle 
of the soul. And so that body will live in 
some such manner as we conceive spirits to 
live, exercising its powers without weariness, 
waste, or decay. And yet it will be so much 
like a body as that it will not be without form 
and size. It will have a nature or structure 
of its own, so that it can be touched and 
grasped, and will occupy space. It will be 
a body for a spiritual mode of existence. For 
the Apostle's contrast is not between a mate- 
rial and an immaterial body, but between an 
earthly and a heavenly. The words of our 
Lord to the Sadducees throw a ray of light 
upon this part of our inquiry. " They neither 
marry nor are given in marriage, but are as 
the angels of God," L 6., there will be neither 
male nor female. 



RESURRECTION-BODY. 135 

Is such a body inconsistent with the fu- 
ture state ? Do we expose ourselves justly to 
the charge of materialism ? Is there any- 
thing gross in this idea of a resurrection 
body ? We cannot perceive it. Certainly it 
is not beyond the power of the Almighty. 
Cannot he " who holdeth up the ends of the 
earth, who fainteth not, neither is weary," 
create and sustain spiritual bodies, immortal 
glorious and powerful, without that train of 
second causes which nourisFi these bodies of 
flesh? Because we have no knowledge of 
bodies sustained in a different mode from ours, 
shall we venture to assert there are none? 
Let nature herself rebuke such arrogance. 
There is a species of vegetation named the 
air-plant, whose mode of existence is as differ- 
ent from that of ordinary plants as is the res- 
urrection-body we have described, diverse in 
its nature from the body of flesh. This plant 
grows suspended in the air. It strikes no 
root into the soil. It does not touch it. It 
draws from mother-earth not one drop of 
moisture, nor one particle of nutrition. The 
atmosphere alone supplies its wants. But 
now how singular this seems to those who 



136 KESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

never saw such a plant, and whose whole idea 
of vegetable growth is associated with plants 
resting on and penetrating the soil. 

Is it further objected that it is contrary to 
the revealed nature of God, that he as a spirit 
and surrounded by spirits, should yet have 
in heaven, and therefore associating with 
spirits, a class of beings with bodies ? But 
this rests on the erroneous supposition that 
God is pleased with an unvarying sameness. 
Now such a supposition is unsupported by 
anything we see on earth, or are told of 
heaven. Diversity of creation is most plainly 
visible everywhere on this globe. What an 
endless variet)^ of plants, trees and shrubs ! 
How diverse are the leaves in their shapes ! 
The varieties of flowers are to be counted by 
thousands. And when you attempt to classify 
the animal tribes, you are involved in a laby- 
rinth. And what shall we say of fishes and 
birds ! There is in all these a profuseness of 
diversity that is well nigh perplexing. Why, 
the very rocks are not one and the same mix- 
ture of clay, but embrace scores of modifica- 
tions found between the diam.ond and the 
pebble. Nor is this variety restricted to our 



RESUERECTION-BODY. 137 

planet. " For there is one glory of the sun, 
and another glory of the moon, and another 
glory of the stars ; for one star differeth from 
another star in glory." Now what reason have 
we to suppose that the realm of spirits is an ex- 
ception to this law of unity in diversity ? In- 
deed, how can we entertain such a thought, 
when inspiration speaks of grades among the 
beings of heaven? Among those angelic 
hosts are some cherubim, some seraphim, an- 
gels and archangels. And can man have no 
rank there with his spiritual body ? If the 
species of intelligent beings called man is 
not to be obliterated, why should he not in 
heaven magnify the creative power of God, as 
well as Gabriel himself? '' Were the body 
of man to remain forever in the grave, the 
human species would be destroyed ; for there 
would then be no specific difference that we 
know of between men and angels, both be- 
ing pure spirits, unconnected with matter. 
That peculiar race, which united the visible 
and the invisible worlds, which was allied to 
earth by one part of its nature, and to heaven 
by another, would disappear, and a link in 



138 RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

the chain of being would be broken. We 
might conceive God to annihilate a species in 
the exercise of his sovereignty, or in the ex- 
ercise of his justice ; but we could not so 
easily conceive him to change a species ; or, 
in translating the inhabitants of this globe to 
a higher region, to retain only one half of 
their original nature, and consign the other 
to the unconscious elements forever. What, 
it might be asked, could be the reason for 
this change ? Why did he give them bodies 
and then take them away ?* 

But Paul removes all doubt concerning the 
spiritual resurrection-body, by declaring that 
there are different kinds of bodies^ just as there 
are different kinds of jiesho " All flesh is not 
the same flesh, but there is one kind of flesh 
of ineuj another flesh of leasts^ another of 
■dshes^ and another of birds.^^ Here are four 
kinds of flesh, and yet they are allied in one 
genus of a body. But how diverse the na- 
ture and mode of existence of these four 
kinds of bodies ! Man, beast, bird, and fish. 
The element of one is water ; of tlie other, the 

* Dick's Lectures on Theology. 



EESURRECTION-BOD ¥• 139 

air; of the beast, the soil ; while man uses 
all of them. Now, need the diversity be wi- 
der between man's earthly body and his resur- 
rection-body, than between the body of the 
beast and the bird, or between a fish and the 
body of a quadruped ? If then we find such 
different bodies existing on earth, why does it 
appear strange that man may have one kind 
of a body here, and a different body here- 
after ? So that we conclude there are differ- 
ent kinds of bodies for man — a body for this 
earth, a body for saints in heaven, and a body 
for the lost in hell : a body on probatidia, a 
redeemed body, and a condemned body. 

" With what body do they come ?" Paul 
replies, it will be a body immortal, glorious, 
pow^erful and spiritual. And now the ques- 
tion arises, how closely will this resurrection- 
body approximate the earthly tenement ? 
How much of an identity will there be ? 
The identical body will rise, that is, the spe- 
cific body which was buried — the same, and 
not one liJce it, composed out of matter which 
never had any connection with the former 
body. The sameness will not be like that 



140 KESUKEECTIOISr OF THE DEAD. 

which exists between two statues of one man, 
wrought out of the same block of marble, 
by the same sculptor ; but the sameness will 
be such as, when I declare that I am the 
same or identical person who was once a child. 
The conditions of the resurrection are not 
met by investing the soul with a body, it 
must be the old body. This is requisite in 
order to retain human personality. Every 
individual must have a distinct principle of 
identity, which cannot lose itself in the iden- 
tity of another ; and which shall show him 
to be Thomas and not John. It is only by 
the preservation of this that one individual 
can be distinguished from another. And the 
moment we suppose personal identity to be 
destroyed, from that very instant personality 
is lost, and all distinction between identity 
and diversity is done away. Now, in the 
resurrection all bodies must be alike or un- 
like. We cannot suppose them to be all 
alike, for then there could be no recognition 
of individuals. But if they are unlike, each 
must have his own peculiarities, and why 
may not these bear a resemblance to the per- 
sonal peculiarities he had on earth, as to be 



RESURRECTION-BODY. 141 

made without any reference to those ? If 
God raise the body and impress upon it any 
marks that shall distinguish it from other 
bodies, why may not those marks correspond 
to specific points of the earthly body ? And 
note, in this connection, how Paul speaks of 
the resurrection-body — this corruptible must 
put on incorruption, and this mortal must put 
on immortality. ''He could not, indeed," 
says TertuUian, " have spoken more explicit- 
ly, unless he had held his own skin in his 
hand." Besides, remarks Calvin, " if we are 
to receive new bodies, where will be the con- 
formity between the Head and the members ? 
Christ rose ; was it by making himself a new 
body ? No ; but, according to his prediction, 
destroy this body, and in three days I will 
raise it again. The mortal body which he 
before possessed he again resumed. For it 
would have conduced but little to our comfort 
if there had been a substitution of a new 
body, and an annihilation of that which had 
been offered as an atoning sacrifice. We must 
therefore maintain the connection stated by 
the apostle — that we shall rise because Christ 
has risen; for nothing is more improbable 



142 RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

than that our body, in which we ' bear about 
the dying of the Lord Jesus,' should be de- 
prived of a resurrection similar to his." 

To the believer death is reconstructive. 
Just as a vessel of iron, which being cast is 
found to be defective, is then broken in pieces 
and recast out of the same divided parts, and 
yet is the same vessel ; so the resurrection re- 
constructs out of the dust of a frail, corrupt 
body, one that is pure, spiritual and immor- 
tal, and yet it is to all intents the same body. 
Says that accurate and profound thinker, from 
whose work on the Physical Theory of An- 
other Life, we have already drawn, "We 
assume that the apparent import of some 
passages and phrases of Scripture tends to 
suggest the belief that the die of human na- 
ture, as to its form and figure, is to be used 
again in a new world. Partly on the ground 
of inferences from general principles, and 
partly on the strength of particular asser- 
tions, we suppose that the fair and faultless 
paradisiacal model of human beauty and 
majesty, which stood forward as the most 
illustrious instance of creative wisdom — the 
bright gem of the visible world — this form, 



EESUERECTION-BODY. 143 

too, which has been borne and consecrated by 
incarnate deity — that it shall at length regain 
its forfeited honors, and once, more be pro- 
nounced very good ; so good as to forbid its 
being superseded ; on the contrary, that it 
shall be reinstated, and allowed after its long 
degradation, to enjoy its birthright of immor- 
tality. # # # ^ So plastic are all ma- 
terials under the hand of infinite intelligence, 
and so susceptible are natural forms of accom- 
modation to two or more purposes, and so 
much does the unexhausted skill of the Crea- 
tor delight to show its resources, that we may 
readily believe the human body to have been 
so planned from the first, as that its form 
might adapt itself to another and a different in- 
ternal economy. Thatis to say — while the uses 
of internal parts and their functions may be 
changed, yet it will be so as that the new 
functions and uses of parts shall, without 
damage, work in with the original contour 
and symmetry of the form. In this manner, 
not only shall the first design of the Creator 
be honored, but the momentous early history 
of man upon earth shall be visibly kept .in 
mind, by the perpetuity of the form under 



144 RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

which its events were transacted ; and sa, teo, 
shall there be secured a vivid recollection of 
personal identity and individual character." 
On this supposition the reconstruction would 
adhere to the original man as closely as the 
change of existence would permit. Of course 
all this lies in the region of conjecture. To 
determine in what the identity of our natural 
body consists, is a point of great diffculty, 
and probably it cannot be done satisfactorily. 
On a subject so abstruse, difficulties will 
arise from various quarters, and press "upon 
ns in a variety of forms, which require facul- 
ties more penetrating and vigorous than any 
which w^e now possess. 

The identity of the body must consist in 
something which is material, and must be in 
the body itself. Does then this identity con- 
sist in the entireness of the particles which 
constitute the body, or is it peculiar to some 
part ? It cannot consist in the whole of the 
substance of the body for many and obvious 
reasons. We know that in amputation much 
of flesh and bone may be removed, without 
affecting the identity of the body. A man 
may have an arm amputated and a false limb 



EESURRECTION-BODT. 145, 

put in its place, and yet we do not regard the 
identity as destroyed. There was a man who 
entered the army of the United States during 
the present rebellion, weighing at the date of 
enlistment two hundred pounds. He was a 
stalwart, sturdy man. He w^as taken prisoner 
and sent to Andersonville, w^here he endured 
those privations and that inhuman treatment 
w^hich will forever associate that place with 
the Black Hole of Calcutta. At the time of 
release and exchange this prisoner was re- 
duced in weight to ffty-six pounds. He was 
so altered that his nearest kin did not recog- 
nize him when he returned to his home in 
Hartford. Yet this was the same body and 
the same man who two years previously 
w^eighed two hundred pounds. Now, suppose 
him to recover health and to regain his former 
weight, he will still be the same man, al- 
though three-fourths of his body is new mat- 
ter. During the whole time of these changes, 
and when his body was so different from its 
preceding condition, he was the self-same in- 
telligent person, compounded of an imma- 
terial spirit and an organized body. Such 
and similar mutations in our bodies, with 
7 



146 RESUERECTION OF THE DEAD. 

which we all are familiar, show conclusively 
that we must not extend the identity of the 
body to the whole of its substance. We 
witness the vast alterations which sickness 
and privation can produce without affecting 
the identity of the body. We see the sur- 
prising changes which are undergone from 
infancy to maturity, and on to hoary years, 
and yet through all those changes which 
sickness or health produces, and w4iich all 
other causes conjointly occasion in the con- 
tinual depleting and renovating processes ol 
nature, the identity is still preserved. Now, 
a body which is capable of preserving its 
identity under such changes as we observe 
may without doubt undergo many more, and 
such as shall baffle all calculations. From 
what w^e do know, we may safely presume 
that great changes are within the range of 
possibility. 

This point of identity, however, must not 
be pushed too far, so as to require a rigid 
conformity to the earthly body in form, size, 
structure, or specific properties. Paul de- 
clares, this corruptible must put on incorrup- 
tion, denoting a large degree of sameness* 



RESURRECTION-BODY. 147 

But lie also states, this corruptible must put 
on i7icorrtqjtion, — indicating, with equal plain- 
ness, that the resurrection-body is not a mere 
reproduction of that which was on earth. 
All that Paul's language teaches is that the 
body raised is essentially the same. It is as 
near like this body as perfection can be iden- 
tified with imperfection — as a spiritual body 
can resemble a natural body, — as much this 
body as my body to-day is the same body 
which once existed as an embryo. Such an 
identity is all that is required to meet the 
facts of revelation. 

The disappearance of the body in the dust 
of the grave, and the future re-appearance of 
the same body, is forcibly set forth in an illus- 
tration taken from Hallet, and quoted by Dr 
Brown in his '' Eesurrection of Life:" *'A 
g€Ktleman of the country, upon the occasion 
of some signal service this man had done him, 
gave him a curious silver cup. David — for 
that was the man's name — was exceedingly 
fond of the present, and preserved it with the 
greatest care. But one day, by accident, this 
cup fell into a cup of aquafortis ; he, taking 
it to be no other than common water, thought 



148 RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

his cup safe enough, and therefore neglected 
it till he had dispatched an affair of import- 
ance, about which his master had employed 
him, imagining it would be then time enough 
to take out his cup. At length a fellow- 
servant came into the same room, when the 
cup was near dissolved, and looking into the 
aquafortis, asked David w^ho had thrown any- 
thing into that vessel. David said that his 
cup accidentally fell into the water. Upon 
this, his fellow-servant informed him that it 
was not common water, but aquafortis, and 
that his cup was almost dissolved in it. 
When David heard this, and was satisfied with 
the truth of it with his ow^n eyes, he heartily 
grieved for the loss of his cup, and at the 
same time he was astonished to see the liquor 
as clear as if nothing at all had been dissolved 
in it, or mixed with it. As, after a little 
while, he saw the small remains of it vanish, 
and could not now perceive the least particle 
of the silver, he utterly despaired of seeing 
the cup more. Upon this he bitterly be- 
wailed his loss with many tears, and refused 
to be comforted. His fellow-servant, pitying 
him in this condition of sorrow, told him 



EESURRECTION-BODY. 149 

their master could restore him the same cup 
again. David regarded this as utterly im- 
possible. ' What do you talk of?' said he to 
his fellow-servant. ' Do you not knov^ that 
the cup is entirely dissolved, and not the 
least bit of the silver is to be seen ? Are 
not all the little invisible parts of the cup 
mingled with the aquafortis, and become 
parts of the same mass ? How then can my 
master, or any man alive, produce the silver 
anew, and restore my cup ? It can never be ; 
I give it over for lost ; I am sure I shall never 
see it again.' His fellow-servant still insisted 
that their master could restore the same cup, 
and David as earnestly insisted that it was 
absolutely impossible. While they were de- 
bating this point their master came in, and 
asked them what they were disputing about. 
When they had informed him he says to 
David : ' What you so positively pronounce 
to be impossible, you shall see me do with 
very little trouble. Fetch me,' said he to the 
other servant, ' some salt water, and pour it 
into the vessel of aquafortis. Now look,' 
says he, 'the silver will presently fall to the 
bottom of the vessel in a w^hite powder.' 



150 RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

When David saw this he began to have good 
hopes of seeing his cup restored. Next his 
master ordered the servant to drain off the 
liqnor, and to take up the powdered silver 
and melt it. Thus it was reduced into a solid 
silver piece ; and then, by the silversmith's 
hammer, formed into a cup of the same shape 
as before. Thus David's cup was restored 
with a very small loss of its weight and 
value. 

"It is no uncommon thing for men like 
David in this parable to imagine that to be im- 
possible which yet persons of greater skill and 
wisdonl than themselves can perform. David 
w^as as positive that his master could not 
restore his cup as unbelievers are that it is 
incredible that God should raise the dead ; 
and he had as much appearance of reason on 
his side as they. If a human body, dead, 
crumbles into dust, and mingles with the 
earth as with the water of the sea, so as to be 
discernible no more, so the silver cup was dis- 
solved into parts invisible, and mingled with 
the mass of aquafortis. Is it not then easy 
to be conceived that, as a man has wisdom 
and power enough to bring these parts of the 



RESUERECTION-BODT. 151 

silver to be visible again, and to reduce them 
to a cup as before, so God, the Maker of 
heaven and earth, must have wisdom and 
power enough to bring the parts of a dis- 
solved human body together, and to form 
them into a human body again! What 
though David could not restore his own cup ? 
Is that a reason that no man could do it? 
And when his master had promised to restore 
it, what though David could not possibly 
conjecture by what method his master would 
do it ? This was no proof that his master 
was at a loss for a method. So, though men 
cannot raise the dead, yet God, who is in- 
finitely wiser and stronger, can. As David, 
then, was wrong in thinking that it was im- 
possible for his master to restore his cup, it 
must be at least equally wrong for us to 
think it impossible that God should raise the 
dead." 

We therefore conclude that, in order to a 
resurrection of the same body in a proper, 
Scriptural, and human sense, it is not neces- 
sary that the body raised should be identical 
with the specific body which expired the 
last breath ; nor is it required to consist of 



152 RESUERECTION OF THE DEAD. 

the same elementary particles. There may 
be as great, perhaps a greater, difference be- 
tween the believer and the glorified saint than 
there is intellectually and physically between 
the child and the man. And yet, as the same 
person exists in the two stages of the latter 
life, so can the same person bear the image of 
the earthly and also of the heavenly. 

It is no more than just to .remark here that 
this identity which we have been discussing 
has been denied by some who admit a resur- 
rection of the dead. The church fathers are 
not unanimous in their opinions on this point. 
Many of them held gross conceptions of this 
subject. 

Guided by these explanations, we can an- 
sw^er such queries as the following : — Will 
the lame, the blind, the deaf be raised in that 
condition ? Will the body which has lost an 
arm be raised without that arm ? Certainly 
not; for these are imperfections, these are 
parts of the ''dishonor" and "weakness" 
with which the body is buried. It could not 
be raised in power and glory retaining these 
blemishes. But will other peculiarities of 
individual bodies- — such as height, corpulence, 



RESURRECTION-BODY. 153 

and the like — ^be retained ? Probably not. 
For these do not constitute its identity. Each 
deficiency or deformity will not be reproduced, 
any more than the defects of man's spiritual 
nature^ induced by sin, will reappear in the 
righteous ; any more than a dent or finger- 
mark on David's cnp would come again on 
the new cup. It will be a resurrection of 
perfection. Whatever constitutes a defect in 
man's physical structure will have no counter- 
part in "the resurrection of the just." 

On "this line" we may dispose of the 
question whether the infant shall rise at the 
last day an infant, and the old man rise with 
his gray hairs. If the resurrection be one of 
perfection, we may presume that all these 
differences^ arising from age, sex, and the like, 
will not reappear in the new body. That 
infants die is due to sin. But through the 
grace of Christ we believe their souls are 
saved. And yet the faculties of a young child 
are undeveloped ; will they remain thus limit- 
ed forever ? We need not harbor so unwel- 
come a thought. The Scriptures present fio 
warrant for it. Why^ then, should the body 

remain throughout eternity a dwarf? If the 

7* 



154 RESUERECTION OF THE DEAD. 

soul enlarge to that of a perfect human being, 
why need we suppose that the body does not ? 
.And if it does become the full man, will it not 
be the same body as much as the developed 
soul is the identical soul of the infant ? If 
the last enemy, death, is to be deprived of his 
victims by the resurrection^ will that con- 
quest be complete while the large portion of 
the human race which died in infancy and 
childhood remain forever such ? While, there- 
fore, we can pronounce with no degree of 
certainty, still it seems probable that the child 
will be raised with a body of perfect and full 
humanity. 

Nor, finally, should it seem difficult of 
belief that God will not only preserve the dust 
of our bodies, but out of that dust raise the 
same body. For we witness similar preser- 
vation of identity everywhere in nature. It 
is that by means of which " like produces 
like." Such a latent principle abides in every 
seed and in every graft. Here are a dozen 
bulbs of the tulip. They are alike in shape 
and material. They give no evidence of the 
difference in color which exists among them. 
Plant them, and each reproduces its color. 



RESURRECTION-BODY. 155 

Where now is that difference lodged? No 
microscope can detect it. Yet God has fixed 
it somewhere in that bulb. And so, though 
all human dust may appear alike to us, God 
will preserve certain peculiarities in each, and 
reproduce those. And thus each one will 
know that his own body is restored to him, 
and not that of another. He will recognize it, 
as his soul is reunited to the body from which 
so long it has been separated. 

Thus we learn that in no meager or meta- 
physical sense our todies put on immortality. 
These tabernacles we inhabit we shall always 
possesss. A great change will come over 
them. All that is sensual and sinful and 
material and corrupt will be eradicated. A 
glorious, noble and spiritual frame will come 
in their place ; but yet there will be a con- 
nection between this body and that. The 
seed matures in flower and fruit, and thus 
they are connected in vegetable life ; so this 
corrupt frail clay shall become a glorious 
structure, which, however, shall be a con- 
tinuation of the earthly house. 



CHAPTER VII, 



piKCUMSTANCES OF THE EESURRECTION. 

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, 
with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and 
the dead in Christ shall rise first ; then we which are alive and re- 
main shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet 
the Lord in the air.— 1 Thess. iv. 16, IT. 

The trumpet ! the trumpet ! the dead have all heard ; 
Lo, the depths of the stone-covered chancel are stirred ! 
From the sea, from the land, from the South and the North, 
The vast generations of man are come forth. 

The resurrection of the dead is one of the 
mysterious doctrines of the New Testament. 
We are perplexed to comprehend it. And yet 
it is one of the most plainly revealed. We 
are not left to inference. It i§ set forth with 
the utmost distinctness. Christ spoke of it 
during his teachings. Apostles repeated it 
through all their ministry. In addition to all 
these utterances of the doctrine, we have in 
Eevelation and in two of Paul's Epistles a 
brief description of the order of the resurrec- 
tion, and of the events associated with it. Let 
us pick up these separated fragments, and set 
them in one picture^ that thus we may obtain 
156 



CIRCUMSTANCES OF RESUREECTION. 157 

a tolerably clear idea of the accompaniments 
of the resurrection. 

And first, the resurrection is effected by*the 
direct agency of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is 
personally present. He comes from heaven 
for that special purpose. " For the Lord 
himself shall descend from heaven with a 
shout."^ He shall appear in the clouds with 
great glory. "Behold, He cometh with clouds, 
and every eye shall see Him, and they also 
which pierced him."t He shall be no less 
conspicuous in the resurrection than he was 
in the crucifixion. Then all heaven's atten- 
tion was centered upon Him ; and so heaven 
and earth will behold Him, when He comes in 
glory to receive the fruits of his sufferings and 
intercessions. This is the *^ coming of the 
Lord," of which mention is made frequently 
in the Epistles. And it will be a magnificent 
advent; one entirely befitting the King of 
Glory. Earth will then see her Sovereign as 
He never before was beheld [by her. The 
majesty of heaven's court will be transferred 

* 1 Thess. iv^ 16. t Kev. i. 7. 



158 EESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

to this globe. There was grandeur at Sinai. 
^' There were thunderings and lightnings, and 
a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice 
of the trumpet exceeding loud. And Mount 
Sinai was altogether on a smoke, the smoke 
thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace." 
But the imposing scenes of the resurrection 
will far surpass these. The once despised 
Galilean will appear as " the only begotten 
of the Father," '' the brightness of His glory, 
and the express image of His person." 

He will come in royal state, surrounded by 
holy angels. Says Paul, " The Lord Jesus 
shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty 
angels. ^^^ These seem to be the attendants 
of the Deity ; for in all the appearances of 
the Almighty angels are associated with Him. 
At the giving of the law on Sinai they were 
present. " The chariots of God are twenty 
thousand, even thousands of angels; the Lord 
is among them as in Sinai, in the holy place." 
A company of the heavenly host announced 
to the shepherds the birth of the infant Jesus. 
Angels came and ministered unto Him after 

2 Thess. i. 7. 



CIRCUMSTANCES OF RESUREECTION. 159 

the temptation was concluded. In the agonies 
of the garden they furnished relief. When 
He ascended from Olivet, angels undoubtedly 
awaited Him in that cloud which received 
Him out of sight. And angels form His 
convoy as He returns to earth to reunite the 
souls and bodies of His ransomed ones. It is 
written that He shall come with His mighty 
angels ; there shall be the voice of, an arch- 
angel^ as though all the dignitaries of heaven 
were to be present. Indeed, all the terms 
whereby the advent is described produce the 
impression of exalted majesty and godlike 
glory. 

And this is the spectacle which all flesh 
shall behold on coming from the grave. This 
dazzling array of heaven's hosts, outshone by 
the Son of man in the midst of them, shall 
burst full on the view. There enthroned in 
the sky will sit the Ancient of Days, whom 
Daniel saw in prophetic vision ; whose " gar- 
ment was white as snow, and the hair of His 
head like pure wool ; his throne was like the 
fiery flame, and His wheels as burning fire. 
A fiery stream issued and came forth before 
Him ; thousand thousands ministered unto 



160 RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand 
stood before Him." By the saints of the Most 
High this will be looked upon with rapturous 
delight, for they shall be ''caught up to meet 
the Lord in the air." In that King, arrayed 
in all this splendor^ they will recognize their 
Saviour, their Advocate, and their Elder 
Brother. But alas ! with w^hat terror and 
dismay will all the impenitent dead, now 
raised to life, behold that august spectacle! 
A guilty conscience will recognize in that 
glorified person the Jesus of Nazareth, whom 
they rejected as the crucified Saviour. And 
in dread anticipation the words of condemna- 
tion already ring in their ears — " Those mine 
enemies which would not that I should rule 
over them, bring hither and slay before me." 

" What shall I be, Lord, when thy radiant glory, 
As from the grave I rise, encircles me ; 
When brightly pictured in the light before me, 
What eye hath never seen, my eyes shall see ? 
What shall I be ?" 

The resurrection is specifically attributed 
to Christ. He himself said, " the dead shall 
hear the voice of the Son of God." Paul has 
a similar expression, ''for the Lord himself 



CIRCUMSTANCES OF RESUERECTION. 161 

shall descend from heaven with a shout," that 
is, with a loud noise. He therefore is the 
visible agent. "By him were all things 
created that are in heaven, and that are in 
earth, visible and invisible * # # all 
things were created by him, and for him." 
Likewise in the resurrection He is the agent, 
acting for the Deity. Hence believers are 
said^ in one place, to be raised by the power 
of Grod^ and in another by the power of Christ. 
Just as the worlds are said to be made by 
Christ, and also by the power of God ; show- 
ing not only concerted action, but such a 
unity that what one person of the Godhead 
performs, the other are said to do. As Laza- 
rus heard that voice and arose, so at the bid- 
ding of that same voice, again breaking silence 
on earth, all the dead shall rise. This cer- 
tainly implies a direct action on the part of 
our Lord. He is not a silent immovable per- 
former of this stupendous miracle. He effects 
it by his voice. And it is worthy of note here, 
that by his voice he wrought the many won- 
ders which are recorded of him in the Gospel 
history. That which the Psalmist adduces as 
a proof of God's power — '^he spake and it 



162 EESUERECTION OF THE DEAD. 

was done ; he commanded and it stood fast " 
— is found to exist in Jesus of .Nazareth^ for by 
his mere word he wrought mighty wonders, 
and at the last day " the word of his power " 
shall rend the graves, and call to life the na- 
tions of the dead. 

This resurrection is the final act of Jesus as 
the Mediator. It finishes his work. The 
cross was not the closing scene. That was 
the end of the humiliation and suffering. 
For the work of redemption still proceeds 
under his guidance, and shall go on until he 
comes again in glory. *' For he must reign 
until he hath put all enemies under his feet. 
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is 
death." That for which he assumed human 
nature will then be accomplished. Death 
will be destroyed, and its effects obliterated 
from earth. But this final conquest and 
thorough subjugation of man's merciless foe 
cannot be accomplished until ^' those that are 
in their graves come forth." When the be- 
liever ascends to meet his Lord, complete in 
the sanctified manhood of the resurrection, 
his flesh rescued from the grave, then will he 
be able to use, in its full meaning, the language 



CIRCUMSTANCES OF RESURRECTION. 163 

of triumph, '^0 death, where is thy sting? 
grave, where is thy victory ? The sting of 
death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law ; 
but thanks be to God who giveth us the vic- 
tory through our Lord Jesus Clirist." For 
you will notice Paul expressly states^ that 
^\w]ien this corruptible shall have put on in- 
corruption, and this mortal shall have' put on 
immortality, then shall be brought to pass the 
saying that is written. Death is swallowed up 
in victory." This shout, which goes up from 
so many a death-bed^ is but the precursor of 
the resurrection huzza. As employed by the 
dying believer, it denotes the emancipation of 
the soul ; but when it bursts again from the 
rising believer, it shall signify the deliverance 
of the body from the house of bondage. 
Then death will die. His cruel reign ceases. 
The man stronger than he has come and de- 
spoiled his house. The cells are broken open, 
where so long a time he has incarcerated all 
of woman born^ and they are released from the 
solitary confinement of ages. His sickle is 
broken, and his arm, never before wearied, falls 
nerveless at his side. There are no more fields 
for him to reap. And all the gatherings of 



164 RESUERECTIOI^ OF THE DEAD. 

ages, which he has brought from every clime, 
are now torn from his garners. 

" O Death ! with what an eye of desperate lust, 
From out thy emptied vaults, thou then wilt look 
After the risen multitude of all 
Mankind." 

Another circumstance of the resurrection 
will be the noise and visible signs by ivhich it is 
to be inaugurated. There is the sounding of a 
trumpet. The narrative thus reads : '' We 
shall all be changed * * at the last trump^ 
for the tncmjjet shall sounds and the dead shall 
be raised."^ ^'For the Lord himself shall 
descend from heaven with a shout^ with the 
voice of the archangel, and with the trump 
of God.'^t That is^ the trumpet which God 
causes to be sounded, and not that w^hich He 
sounds. In the account in Eevelation there is 
no mention of this trump. A trumpet w^as 
the instrument employed to convene the peo- 
ple. Jewish assemblies for worship were 
thus convoked. Therefore, to blow a trumpet 
meant to call people together for some very 
important occasion. And this may be all that 

* 1 Cor. XV. 52. 1 1 Thess. iv. 16. 



CIRCUMSTANCES OF RESURRECTION. 165 

is signified in the passages referring to the 
resurrection. It may simply denote that the 
whole world is to be convoked. But in ad- 
dition, we may fairly connect with this ex- 
pression of sounding a trumpet, the idea of a 
noise or commotion, which shall arrest atten- 
tion. The few descriptive words must be 
carefully considered. They are these : '^ The 
trumpet shall sound ;" ^' the Lord himself 
shall descend with a shout^ with the voice 
of the archangel." These indicate some 
act or circumstance which shall startle men, 
and break in upon the quiet of nature. 

Terrestrial commotions have been associa- 
ted with .the beginning of those great epochs, 
which mark the history of sin and redemption. 
Nature underwent some change at the Fall, in 
which the curse upon the ground was en- 
tailed. The deluge was another instance 
where the punishment of man's sin was con- 
nected with terrene disaster. So^ in the giv- 
ing of the law at Sinai there was a display of 
the powers of nature ; also on that occasion 
there was a trumpet sounded. The noise of it 
w^as " exceeding loud," '' the voice of the 
trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and 



166 KESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

louder." We note similar manifestations in 
the history of Kedemption. A star appeared 
and heralded the birth of Christ. At his cru- 
cifixion " the vail of the temple was rent in 
twain from the top to the bottom, and the 
earth did quake, and the rocks rent." To 
which account Luke adds, that " the sun was 
darkened, and there was darkness over the 
earth for three hours." As such terrestrial 
phenomena have attended all these instances 
in which God has appeared to man in crises 
of his history, we may presume that similar 
commotions will mark the approach of the 
resurrection. It may be that as an earth- 
quake occurred at the resurrection of Christ, 
so there will be an upheaval of earth in the 
general resurrection, connected with phenom- 
ena in the atmosphere. At all events we 
read that the heavens are to be rolled to- 
gether, and the earth will be burned up. 

At that voice of the son of God all nature 
will be convulsed. This earth, arched over with 
graves, will crack and heave as with the con- 
vulsions of an earthquake. From mountain 
peak and desert strand, in solitariness, the 
dead shall come forth. From ten thousands of 



CIRCUMSTANCES OF RESUERECTION. 167 

church-yards and cemeteries thej^ will spring> 
thickly as the willows by the water-course. 

" The family tomb, to whose devouring mouth 
Descended sire and son, age after age, 
In long unbroken hereditary line, 
Poured forth at once the ancient father rude, 
And all his offspring of a thousand years.'* 

Every battle-field will move again. Battalions, 
divisions, and army corps will be marshaled 
once more on those bloody plains ; not to 
unite in furious charge and deadly fray ; but 
to file right and left^ according as they fought 
under the banner of the cross, or under the 
folds of the serpent's ensign. Yes ! Bull 
Eun, Corinth, Murfreesboro', Chancellorsville, 
and Fredericksburg, those slaughter-fields of 
our terrible war^ will swarm again; and 
North and South will stand once more face to 
face. And from most unexpected places will 
the dead come. From beneath vast edifices 
they will emerge. From spots where the 
murderer's cunning has hidden them. From 
beneath the tesselated halls where fashion and ' 
riotous mirth have held high carnival, thought- 
less of the sleepers below ; from under the 
stones of the thronged thoroughfare ; from 
the plowed field and garden; from the 



168 EESUKKECTION OF THE DEAD. 

roadside — in shorty wherever human dust 
lies, thence will it break forth ; for no height 
of soil, nor ponderous weight can keep down 
man's dust, when the voice of the Lord saith 
*' Come forth." Also out of the briny deep 
they will arise, and from flowing streams, and 
from lakes and inland seas. •'This number, in 
the aggregate^ will be very large. So vast is 
this multitude, that in the account of the res- 
urrection contained in Eevelation^ separate 
mention is made of this class of the dead. It 
is written, ^^and the sea gave up the dead 
which were in it." This includes all those who 
have been swept away by floods, all who have 
perished by shipwreck, all who have been 
killed in naval-battles, — all, indeed, who have 
found a watery grave. What a vast multitude 
will arise from the waters of the Ganges, which 
has swallowed up myriads of heathen chil- 
dren! 

" As sudden rose, 
• From out their watery beds, the ocean's dead, 

Renewed, and on the unstirring billows stood, 
From pole to pole, thick covering* all the sea ; 
Of every nation blent, and every age." 

One of England's greatest poets, whose 
t 



CIRCUMSTAKCES OF EESURRECTION. 169 

compositions^ however, are the cominon prop- 
erty of the Saxon race, has indulged his im- 
agination in a description of the resurrection. 
But poetry does not always restrict itself 
to the limits of God's Word. Young, in his 
" Last Day " represents the disjointed and scat- 
tered fragments of the human frame flying 
through the air^ and coming together like the 
bones in Ezekiel's vision. The passage is so 

striking as to repay perusal in this connec- 
tion : 

" Now monuments prove faithful to their trust, 
And render back their long committed dust ! 
Now charnels rattle ; scattered limbs, and all 
The various bones, obsequious to the call, 
Self-moved, advance ; the neck, perhaps, to meet 
The distant head ; the distant legs the feet. 
Dreadful to view, see, through the dusky sky, 
Fragments of bodies in confusion fly. 
To distant regions journeying, there to claim 
Deserted members, and complete the frame." 

The process, which this bold imagery de- 
picts, does not necessarily form a part of the 
resurrection, so far as the Scriptures throv/ 
any light upon the mode. We have seen that 
it is not required that every particle, or even 
each member of the body should be raised, in 
8 ' 



170 EESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

order that the same body may appear. The 
body can rise without thus sending to the 
corners of the earth for its original parts. 

And yet, while there will be no such seek- 
ing of bone for bone, there will be a process 
no less wonderful when the spirit searches for 
its body. Each soul^ led by some unerring 
impulse, will be drawn to its own dust. It 
may be that the souls of the righteous will 
form a part of the angelic convoy, which at- 
tends the Lord Jesus from heaven ; and that 
after He speaks the word which shall awaken 
human dust, each spirit shall leave that 
throng, and fly to the spot w^here its new 
body is forming. Amazing, indeed, will be 
that movement! A multitude which no 
man can number will be in that blessed 
throng ; and radiating, as from a center, to 
all parts of the globe, they will speed as on 
the wings of the wind. And souls will also 
come up from the pit ; for hell shall deliver 
up the dead which are in it. Proud Dives will 
find his body amid the ruins of that splendid 
mausoleum ; and Lazarus will greet his in the 
Potters Field. Ah ! what a difference be- 
tween the burial and the rising of these 



CIRCUMSTANCES OF RESURRECTION. 171 

bodies ! Many which men handled carefully, 
and wliich reposed beneath the sculptured 
marble, now rise to shame and everlasting 
contempt ; while the pauper's body, which 
was rudely jostled over the stones, and thrust 
without a tear amid the heaps which pre- 
ceded him, will '^ rise to glory and honor." 

In what part of the body's reconstruction 
the soul will come to it, we cannot determine. 
It may be that when the body is reached, it 
will be found already reclothed, like a house 
w^hich kind friends have set in order during 
the owner's absence ; like Adam's body, com- 
plete when he was made conscious of himself. 
And in many instances how different will be 
the going in of the soul from those circum- 
stances which attended its departure from the 
body ! When last time one soul was in the 
body, it was ministered to by loved kindred. 
All the delicacies which money could pur- 
chase^ or love invent, were at his side. Tears 
fell all around. The servant of God was 
praying, and telling of Jesus, in whom that 
soul had never trusted. But now no voice of 
prayer is heard, no hope in Jesus is presented, 
no word of comfort, no tear of sympathy for 



172 RESUREECTION OF THE DEAD. 

its coming woes. But another, lying hard 
by, enjoyed none of these kind offices of affec- 
tion. Dogs came and licked his sores, and, 
unattended, he picked up^ with thin and trem- 
bling fingers, the cold crumbs of charity, and 
sipped no cordial other than his heavenly Fa- 
ther gave in the running brook and bubbling 
fountain. He expired in a cheerless cellar^ or 
desolate garret, with none but his Savior near 
him, and his Bible by his side. But now as 
he returns to meet that body, he enters an in- 
corruptible abode, sanctified by the blood of 
atonement, and made fit for angelic compan- 
ions; and then, springing upward, he rejoins 
his Lord. 

But before one departs to the abode of de- 
spair, and the other to the mansion in the 
skies, a solemn scene is transacted. Look 
above ! The Ancient of Days sitting on that 
throne opens the books ; and a mighty voice 
rends the air : 

"For judgment, judgment, sons of men, 
prepare !" " And I saw," wrote John, " a 
great white throne, and him that sat on it, 
from whose face the earth and the heaven fled 
away; and there was found no place for 



CIRCUMSTANCES OP RESURRECTION. 173 

them. And I saw the dead, small and great, 
stand before God; and the books were 
opened ; and another book was opened, which 
is the book of life ; and the dead were judged 
out of those things which were written in the 
books, according to their works." No lan- 
guage can add to these plain but solemn words. 
It would seem from this that men are to be 
judged after reunion with the body. They 
are to be judged as men^ and not as disem- 
bodied spirits. We are to be tried for the 
deeds done in the hody ; that is, not only for 
that which was committed while on the earth, 
but for those deeds in which the body partici- 
pated. As the body is to be glorified or pun- 
ished together with the soul^ it must also un- 
dergo its trial in connection with the soul. 

Another fact in regard to the resurrection 
now claims our attention. The earth will be 
teeming with pojptdation when this event comes. 
That beautiful poem of The Last Man, however 
charming, finds no reality in Holy Writ. 
" Behold," says Paul, '' I show you a mystery, 
we shall not all sleep," i. e. die, '' but we 
shall all be changed." That is to say, there 
will be persons alive when the hour of resur- 



174 RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

rection arrives. This is plainly asserted in the 
first epistle to the Thessalonians, " For this we 
say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we 
which are alive and remain unto the coming 
of the Lord, shall not prevent them which 
are asleep," i. e., the living shall not precede 
the dead in assuming the resurrection-body. 
With this agree the words of our Saviour, 
which have their complete fulfillment in the 
events of the last day. '' For as in the days 
that were before the flood they were eating 
and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage^ 
until the day that Noah entered into the Ark, 
and knew not until the flood came and took 
them all away, so shall also the coming of the 
Son of Man be."^^ Houses will be filled with 
families. Streets will swarm with passers. 
No devastating pestilence shall have ahnost 
depopulated the earth. There will be a den- 
ser population than ever before possessed the 
globe. And all the busy bustling scenes of 
life will be in the full tide of progress. 

But upon all these a change must come. 
For the living body is to be renewed. This 

* Matt. xxiv. 38, 39 



CIRCUMSTANCES OF RESURRECTION. 175 

must be the case, as Paul declares, '* for flesh 
and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." 
The bodies of those then living will be mor- 
tal, as were the bodies of all who preceded 
them. That animal body could not enter 
heaven. It must be changed into the same 
spiritual body which those receive who come 
from their graves. There will be no distinc- 
tion throughout eternity which shall indicate 
who were alive when the Lord came. There- 
fore, the souls and bodies of the living will be 
so renewed as to be adapted to the spiritual 
life. Nor need they pass through the inter- 
mediate state, in which all other of mankind 
abide until the resurrection. 

This change will be instantaneous^ in a mo- 
ment^ "in the twinkling of an eye." Indeed, 
this is the character of the resurrection. It is 
not a slow process. It is described as quickly 
done. None of the slower processes of na- 
ture will be employed. But, as our Lord 
raised His dead at the moment he spaJie the wordj 
so will He do in the last day. 

And not only will the resurrection be 
quickly accomplished, it wall likewise come 



176 RESUERECTION OF THE DEAD 

unexpectedly. Men will not be looking tor it. 
No exposition of prophecy will enable the 
most learned to predict the day« '^ Of that 
day and hour knoweth no man.'' " The day 
of the Lord will come as a thief in the night." 
As the rain of fire fell suddenly upon Sodom, 
so wdll the fires of the last day break out un- 
expectedly. '' But of the times and seasons ye 
have no need that I write unto you. For 
yourselves know perfectly that the day of the 
Lord so Cometh as a thief in the night." It 
may be at the cock-crowing, when men have 
just gone forth to the duties of the day, or 
when they are in the full tide of their avoca- 
tions. What an arrest of life that will be, if 
the resurrection come during the hours of the 
day ! The earth will be full of the children 
of men, going to and fro on their errands of 
toil or pleasure. Not even the deluge was 
such a shock to the human family, as will be 
the resurrection. For in that the waters rose 
gradually, but this will be '^in a moment," 
'' at the sound of the trumpet." The ordi- 
nary occupations of life will be going on. 
Men will be buying and selling. Crops will 
be in the garner. Seed v/ill be in the soil. 



CIRCUMSTANCES OF EESURRECTION. 177 

Fruit will be hanging on the tree. Edifices 
will be partly erected. Merchandise will be 
on its way to market. The ship will be in 
mid-ocean, with sails all set. The school-boy 
will be pondering his lesson. The infant will 
be in the mother's arms. The daily paper 
will be partly in type. The book will be in 
the hands of the binder. Meat will be hang- 
ing in the shambles. The day's provision will 
be in the kitchen. Smoke will be curling out 
of the forge. Iron will be upon the anvil, 
and the shoe npon the last. Mechanics who 
work upon w^ood, metal and stone will be 
bending over their task ; and all the sons and 
daughters of toil will be earning their bread 
by the sweat of their brow. The patient ox 
will be pulling in the furrow, and the impa- 
tient steed will be champing on the bit. The 
preacher's sermon will be unfinished. Unde- 
cided will be the lawyer's suit. The maiden 
will be thinking of her lover; and the bridal 
party will be at the altar. Thus men will be 
^'eating and drinking, marrying and giving in 
marriage, when, like a thunder-clap in a cloud- 
less sky, there will be the shout, the trumpet, 
and the springing up of the dead. " For, as 



178 RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

the lightning cometh out of the east, and 
shineth even unto the west, so shall also the 
coming of the Son of Man be." 

Thus suddenly shall the dead appear among 
the living. Oh ! what a spectacle that will 
be for the living, already terrified by " the 
shout," and '^the trumpet," and these com- 
motions in nature ! The dead will spring up 
in their very houses, and beneath their feet. 
The traveler will be arrested along the high- 
way, and the ploughman in the field, by 
bodies coming up from their long-forgotten 
graves. Wherever men are, and whitherso- 
ever they turn, this spectral sight will blind 
their eyes. 



' The newly-sheeted corpse arose, and stared 
On those who dressed it; and the coffined dead, 
That men were bearing to the tomb, awoke, 
And mingled with their friends ; and armies, which 
The trump surprised met in the furious shock 
Of battle, saw the bleeding ranks, new fallen, 
Rise up at once, and to their ghastly cheeks 
Return the stream of life in healthy flow ; 
And as the anatomist, with all his band 
Of rude disciples, o'er the subject hung, 
And impolitely hewed his way through bones 
And muscles of the sacred form, 
Exposing barbarously to wanton gaze 



CIECUMSTANCES OF RESUEEECTION. 179 

The mysteries of nature, joint embraced 

His kindred joint, the wounded flesh grew up, 

And suddenly the injured man awoke, 

Among their hands,, and stood arrayed complete 

In immortality; forgiving scarce 

The insult offered to his clay in death,"* 

And now, as the result of this collation of 
the statements of the New Testament in re- 
gard to the circumstances of the resurrection, 
we learn that the Lord Jesus shall descend 
from heaven with great visible power and 
glory, attended by angels high in character 
and position : halting somewhere in the at- 
mosphere, He will speak, and then loud noises 
and terrestrial convulsions will ensue, during 
which the dead shall arise. This appearance 
of the Lord will come suddenly, and men will 
have no warning of it. When He comes the 
earth will be populous, and the inhabitants of 
the globe will be engaged in the ordinary 
pursuits of life. Those then alive will un- 
dergo a change after the dead are raised ; and 
this too will be done rapidly, " in the twink- 
ling of an eye." The living, thus fitted for 

* PoUok's Course of Time, Book viL 



180 KESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

the spiritual state, will mingle with the raised 
dead, and proceed to the judgment throne, 
which will probably be in the air, where the 
Lord remains. After the trial^ the sentence, 
and the division^ the righteous will depart and 
be forever with the Lord, while the wicked 
shall go back to associate with demons. It 
is not stated at w^hat juncture the wicked are 
raised. But the particulars of the whole ac- 
count leave the impression that the righteous 
and the wicked rise together. And this would 
seem probable and appropriate. For they 
have been together in this life, like tares and 
wheat ; they will lie together until the resur- 
rection day ; and one judgment day and scene 
suffice for each. The natural inference is 
that they rise from the grave together. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



LESSONS OF THE RESURRECTION. 

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, al- 
ways abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know 
that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.— 1 Cor. xv. 58. 

«< My grave, so long a dark and drear abyss, 
Is now scarce noticed on the way to bliss ; 
Once at the gates of hell it yawning lay, 
Now stands as portal to the land of day ; 
It takes me to the Father's home so blest ; 
It brings me to the feast, a welcome guest." 

There is no mere theory or speculation in 
the word of God. It is eminently practical. 
Every doctrine has a direct bearing upon 
" what man is to believe concerning God, and 
what duty God requires of manP This arises 
from the fact that truth unmixed with error 
is the substance of the Bible. And truth is 
always useful. In nature there is no waste, 
and in the revelation which God has made 

there is no useless material. We may not 
181 



182 RESURRECTION OF THE BEAD. 

always be able to discover the utility, never- 
theless it exists. 

In like manner there are practical lessons 
taught by the resurrection of the dead. This 
too is not revealed to astonish, but to comfort 
and instruct. For does not Paul close that 
discussion of the resurrection with these 
words, " therefore^'^^ as the conclusion of the 
whole, " my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, 
unmoveable, always abounding in the work 
of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your 
labor is not in vain in the Lord ?" John 
Knox^ a little before his death, rose out of his 
bed^ and being asked why he rose when he 
was so sick^ he answered that he had in the 
night sweet meditations of the resurrection of 
Jesus Christ, and now he would go into the 
pulpit and impart unto others the comfort he 
felt in his own soul. But the resurrection of 
. Jesus Christ leads to our own, and to all the 
glorious hopes associated therewith. And 
now^ at the close of our examination of this 
doctrine, let us refresh our hearts, and quick- 
en each grace by a meditation upon the les- 
sons of the resurrection. 

1. The Christian should he stimulated to great 



LESSONS OF THE RESURRECTION. 183 

and self-denijing efforts in honor of Him who has 
secured the resurrection of the body ; and he 
shoidd he sustained in tJiose labors by a considera- 
tion of the high glory which Christ has thus 
conferred. This is tlie direct lesson which 
Paul draws from the doctrine as he discusses 
it in the fifteenth capter of first Corinthians. 
He says we should be steadfast, and always 
abound in the work of the Lord. 

The more one has done for us^ the greater 
are the obligations under which we are 
placed. Now, in our estimate of the benefits 
of redemption, do w^e give sufficient value to 
the delivery of the body from the power of 
sin? So engrossed are we in the salvation oj 
the soul, that we do not properly remember 
that the body is included in this salvation. In- 
deed^ how little we think of the resurrection 
of the body ! We have few joyous anticipa- 
tions associated therewith. The believer 
meditates upon the invisible things of heaven, 
he imagines the pleasures which will roll in 
upon his sold, with a ceaseless flow ; but does 
he remember that there are pleasures con- 
nected with his glorified body ? There must 
be. For God does not raise up the body just 



1S4 RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

for the sake of having it in heaven. In some 
way that body shall conduce to an enlarged 
bliss. 

And oh ! what widening wonders of grace 
does this unfold ! Would it not have been 
enough, had this soul alone been rescued, 
while the body was consigned to irrecover- 
able corruption ? Why might not the body 
have been flung aside as dross compared with 
the soul ? — as refuse too vile to call forth di- 
vine compassion ? If there was nothing in 
the soul that could deserve the divine favor, 
what was there in the body ? It was the 
seat of unholy passions and lusts^ as was 
also the soul. It was diseased, mortal^ cor- 
ruptible. It must die, decay, crumble to 
atoms, and be devoured by worms ; why, then^ 
should God exert His omnipotence to deliver 
this handful of dust from the grave ? Ah ! this 
is one of the wonders of that redemption 
which comes through Jesus Christ. If, then, 
the contemplation of the soul's salvation fills 
our hearts with love and reverential awe, 
should not our amazement be increased, when 
we reflect that the love of God extended to 
this miserable flesh of ours ? 



LESSONS OF THE RESURRECTION. 185 

Does not this show how much God loved 
us ? He loved not only the soul^ but also the 
body. Eegarding the love of God from this 
point, we can read with richer emphasis those 
many precious sentences which declare that 
love. " Hereby perceive we the love of God, 
because He laid down His life for us ;" not 
alone for our souls, but likewise for our 
bodies. And ought not this view of the di- 
vine love inflame ours ? Ousfht it not set our 
souls aglow ? or, as JohnFlavel says^ " make 
them hissing hot ?" And as love impels to 
labor and self-denial, so should we abound in 
works for the Lord. Precisely thus does Paul 
present the doctrine of the resurrection as 
warming the heart and animating the zeal. 
^' Therefore^ beloved brethren, be ye alwaijs 
abounding in the work of the Lord." And a 
similar chord does he touch when addressing 
the Church at Pome : '' If the Spirit of 
him that raised up Jesus from the dead 
dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from 
the dead shall also quicken your mortal 
bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you." 
Here is the resurrection stated. Notice now 
the inference: '^^Aere/bre, brethren, we are 



186 RESURKECTION OF THE DEAD. 

debtors, not to the flesh to live after the 
flesh." And, with how close an application 
can we Usten to Paul's exhortation, '^I be- 
seech you^ therefore, brethren, by the mercies 
of God, that ye present your bodies a living 
sacrifice^ holy^ acceptable unto God, which is 
your reasonable service !" When we include 
the resurrection in the redeeming love of God, 
more powerfully these words appeal to us. 
For we ought now to surrender ourselves to 
Him just as perfectly as we would desir® to 
be His, in that day w^hen the trump of the 
archangel shall announce the hour of resur- 
rection. 

And as we endeavor to look through the 
crowd of labors and toils which encompass 
our pilgrimage, to that sweet rest which 
lieth at the end, let us associate the body 
with that rest. It too shall repose from all its 
hardships^ not in the annihilation of the 
grave^ but in the blissful occupations of 
heaven. As we press onward, with the prize 
resplendent before our eyes, let us remember 
that the body has its share in that prize. 
For the body^ raised in the dignity of a new 
life, shall participate in the blessings of grace. 



LESSONS OF THE EESURRECTION. 187 

That crown which comes to the faithful fol- 
lower of the Lord shall adorn its head. The 
golden harp shall be grasped by its fingers. 
Ah ! what comfort here for the hmiible be- 
liever, amid his obscurity and poverty ! Does 
he often find it difficult to refrain from envy at 
the better state of his neighbor ? Do his hands 
toil^ while so many others rest ? Is he hard 
at work early and late ? Be content ! That 
body, so weary now at night-fall, shall never 
desire rest from its work in that better land ; 
for it shall roam along the banks of the river 
of life ; and those hands, now callous by toil, 
shall pluck fi'uit from the Tree of Life, which 
is in the Paradise of God. Though you may 
not be able to adorn your person with velv^ets, 
satins and gems, be not envious, for the 
snow-white linen "which is the righteousness 
of the saints/' shall enfold your body in the 
place of the winding-sheet. And all thy gar- 
ments shall smell — not of the mould of the 
grave, but " of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, 
out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have 
made thee glad." When we see one in the 
streets gathering, from every heap, old pieces 
of rags and dirty clouts, little would we 



188 EESUREECTION OF THE DEAD. 

think that from those old and stained rags, 
beaten together in the mill, there should be 
made such beautiful white paper, as afterwards 
we see there is. Thus the poor despised peo- 
ple of God may be rejected as the oft'scour- 
ing of all things, and banished from the 
abodes of affluence ; they may be smeared 
and smutched all over by the smoke of daily 
toil ; they may be in tears and even in blood, 
both broken-hearted and broken-boned ; yet 
for all this they need not despair, for God will 
make them one day shine as brilliantly as the 
stars in heaven, and will write upbn their 
fair, imperial brows His own name forever. 
The gardener of Elizabeth, wife of Frederic 
IL, had one little daughter, with whose re- 
ligious instruction he had taken great pains. 
When she was five years old, the Queen 
met her one day, and was so much pleased 
with her, that a short time after, she requested 
the gardener to bring the child to the palace 
to spend a day. She approached the Queen 
with true courtesy, kissed her robe, and mod- 
estly took her seat which had been placed for 
her near the Queen. At dinner she was 
seated in a position from which she could 



LESSONS OF THE KESUREECTION. 189 

overlook the table at which the Queen was 
dining with the ladies of the court. They 
watched with interest to see the effect of so 
much splendor on an humble child. She 
looked on the costly dresses of the guests, on 
the gold and porcelain of the table, and the 
pomp with which all was conducted, and then, 
folding her hands, she sang with her clear 
childish voice these words : 

"Jesus, thy blood and rigliteonsness 
Are all my ornament and dress ; 
Fearless, with these pure garments on, 
I'll view the splendor of thy throne." 

And the lowliest Lazarus may repeat this 
precious consolation^ as he witnesses a luxury 
which contrasts painfully with his penury. 
How better and more effectually can he re- 
press the envy which so naturally rises in his 
heart ! 

^ Again, the doctrine of the resurrection fur- 
nishes comfort amid bodily distresses. Much of 
man's suffering is in the body, and arises out 
of its construction, and springs from its ex- 
posure. Capable of great endurance, the body 



190 KESUKRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

is yet exquisitely sensitive. It can brave the 
rigors of extreme cold, while it smarts under 
the prick of a needle. It is not strange, then, 
that such an organism should often quiver 
with pain. 

Weary years God often causes his beloved 
thus tO' suffer pain. Not a night passes with- 
out wakefulness and tossing. Sharp pains 
dart through all our bodies, making us cry out 
oft times. Many have a bodily ailment which, 
though it seldom confines them in a sick 
chamber, still suffices to render them familiar 
with pain. Perhaps, like the low grumbling 
of a volcano^ its dull throbs scarcely ever 
cease in the flesh. Now, how consoling to 
know that these are not inherent to the body ! 
They have come in through sin. Like thorns 
and thistles to the soil, they were sown by 
man's transgression. And when sin ceases, 
these shall remove. Pain and sickness, there- 
fore, are the mere accidents of the body^ which 
it encounters in this pilgrimage through sin. 

In like strain we may speak of all kinds of 
physical defects. The infirmities of deafness, 
bhndness and lameness are only temporary. 
Likewise those deformities which were born 



LESSONS OF THE EESURRECTIOiN^ 191 

ill the body shall cease with this present 
structure. That new tabernacle for the soul 
wnll have none of the disproportions, nor ugly 
stains and open seams which have made this 
so unsightly and untenable. We must not 
associate these too closely with the body. 
For they are like the dust and mud which 
have adhered to the traveler's garments, but 
which he will wipe off when he gets home. 
The deaf shall hear, the blind shall see, and 
the decrepit be strong in the City of our God. 
Our Lord darkly imaged this in the miracles 
He performed. As has been stated on a for- 
mer page, the largest part of His miracles 
w^ere such as restored the body and its organs 
to the full and normal use of their powers. 
So, by a like energy, will He bring back the 
bodies of His saints to more than pristine 
soundness in the day of the resurrection of 
the dead. 

Then let us soothe these disturbed thoudits 
as we regard these bodily ailments in ourselves 
and in others. That palsied frame of parent, 
brother, or child, which now so grieves your 
heart, will meet you on the resurrection day 
without the unsteady hand and shambling gait. 



192 RESUERECTION OF THE DEAD. 

Those misshapen Imibs and all the distortions 
practised on these bodies by rheumatism — 
that rack upon which so many of the human 
race are stretched — are only the warpings of 
the timber, caused by the heats and strainings 
of this mortal state. Now all these shall dis- 
appear when this corruptible puts on incor- 
ruption. And thus for ourselves and others 
we may repeat the hopeful words of Paul : 
" For we know that if our earthly house of 
this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a 
building of God, an house not made with 
hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this 
we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed 
upon with our house, which is from heaven ; 
if so be that being clothed we shall not be 
found naked. For we that are in this taber- 
nacle do groan being burdened ; not for that 
we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, 
that mortality might be swallowed up of 
life."'* Ah ! many a pious heart can exclaim, 
" In this body I do groan being burdened, not 
that I would be unclothed ! I do not desire 
to cast off the body, as a worn out tenement 

* 2Cor. V. 1,4. 



LESSONS OF THE RESURRECTION. 193 

fit only for fuel ; but I desire to be ' clothed 
upon that this mortality may be swallowed up 
of life!''' 

Paul drew comfort and courage, amid all his 
sufferings and toils, from the doctrine of the 
resurrection of the dead. If our attention 
has not been directed to this aspect of his ex- 
perience^ we shall be surprised to find how 
constantly he looks from present hardships 
and struggles in tlie body to the full fruition of 
bliss only to be had in the resurrection of 
that body. '' We are troubled," he exclaims, 
'' on every side, yet not distressed ; we are per- 
plexed, but not in despair ; persecuted, but not 
forsaken ; cast dowm, but not destroyed ; al- 
ways bearing about in the body the dying of 
the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus 
might be made manifest in our body. * * ^ 
Knowing that he which raised up the Lord 
Jesus, shall raise up us also by Jesus, and 
shall present us with you."* And again, 
" Yea doubtless, and I count all things but 
loss for the excellency of the knowledge of 
Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suf- 

* 2 Cor. iv. 8, 9, 10 and 14. 
9 



194 RESUEEECTIOT OF THE DEAD. 

fered the loss of all things." Paul had given 
up much for Christ's sake, and exposed him- 
self to great perils. All this he did cheer- 
fully^ and counted it but dung in comparison 
with the priceless hope, " that I may know him 
and the power of his resurrection, and the fel- 
lowship of his sufferings * * if by any 
means I might attain unto the resurrection of 
the dead."t Hence the power of Christ's res- 
urrection to Paul as a believer, was the assur- 
ance that as Christ rose, so also should his 
body be recovered from the grave. Oh ! if 
the man could say this who was in stripes 
above measure, in prisons more frequent, in 
deaths oft ; who five times received forty 
stripes save one ; who was thrice beaten with 
rods ; who once was stoned ; who thrice suf- 
fered shipwreck ; who a night and a day was 
in the deep ; who was in perils of robbers, 
and perils by the heathen and by his own 
countrymen ; who was in perils in the city^ 
in the wilderness, in the sea ; who was in 
hunger, in thirst, in cold, in nakedness ! What 
a catalogue of suffering ! If the man who 

t PhU. iii. 8 and 10. 



LESSONS OF THE RESURRECTION. 195 

endured all these was sustained and cheered 
by the hope of the resurrection, how ought 
the blissful anticipations of that resurrection 
suffice for all our bodily sufferiogs, and all our 
earthly privations ! 

Once more. The doctrine of the resurrection 
administers comfort to the bereaved who have 
buried Christian relatives and friends. 

How seldom do mourners seek consolation 
from this source ! And yet the resurrection 
was a large ingredient in the cup of consola- 
tion which Paul presented to the Thessalo- 
nian believers, as the means of assuaging their 
sorrows. '^ But I would not have you to be 
ignorant, brethren, concerning them which 
are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others, 
which have no hope. For, if we believe that 
Jesus died and rose again, even so them also 
which sleep in Jesus will God bring with 
him. For this we say unto you by the word 
of the Lord, that we which are alive and re- 
main unto the coming of the Lord shall not 
prevent them which are asleep. For the 
Lord himself shall descend from heaven with 
a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and 



196 RESUERECTION OF THE DEAD. 

with the trump of God ; and the dead in 
Christ shall rise first ; then we which are alive 
and remain shall be caught up together with 
them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the 
air ; and so shall we ever be with the Lord. 
Wherefore comfort one another with these words y^ 
Now these words in their connection disclose 
this fact. These Thessalonian Christians did 
not mourn because their kindred were dead ; 
but their grief was twofold. There was a 
doubt expressed by some as to the fact of a 
resurrection, and a consequent fear that the 
dead were cut off from the hope of eternal 
happiness. The other cause of grief was, 
that though the dead would rise again, yet 
that event would be a long time after the 
resurrection of those found alive when the 
Lord came. And as they evidently expected 
that the Lord would soon appear, even within 
their lifetime, a cause of their sorrow was that 
they should not rise in company with their 
kindred^ and perhaps that they would be sep- 
arated from them forever in distant parts of 
the same realm of bliss. Now Paul corrects 

* 1 Thes. iv. 13, 18. 



LESSONS OF THE EESURRECTION. 197 

these erroneous apprehensions, and directs 
their minds to the true fads of the doctrine as 
sources of consolation. And these were, that 
they and their deceased Cliristian friends 
should rise together, and in one redeemed and 
glorified band enter heaven. On this account 
they were not to mourn with such extrava- 
gant demonstrations, as did the heathen 
around them ; but rather to temper their grief 
by a consideration of these hopeful revelations 
of Christianity. How seldom are the thoughts 
of mourners turned in this direction ! We 
endeavor to console them^ as they weep 
around the departed believer, by assurances 
that the loved one is in heaven^ and is relieved 
from the pains, distresses, and anxieties of this 
life. But why do we not allay their grief 
by telling them of the resurrection ? We can 
say, as we point to the pallid form, that body, 
through which you knew your departed, is 
to be in the power of death only for a season. 
It is not to be annihilated any more than is 
the soul. It rests in the grave^ while the soul 
rests in heaven. You shall see that body 
again as surely as you see that soul. You 
shall behold your parent, your husband, your 



198 KESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

wife, your sister, your brother^ your child, as 
once they were^ composed of soul and body. 
These united shall form that person, over 
whose body you now shed tears. Do not 
imagine you shall never see that dear form 
again. It, assuming its personal identity, shall 
greet you again. How do you know but 
smiles may again irradiate that countenance ? 
but that this cold hand shall again respond to 
affection's pressure ? but that this deaf ear shall 
again thrill at the tones of your voice ? These 
are the topics of consolation which arise^from a 
consideration of the resurrection of the dead. 
This view lends importance to, and confirma- 
tion of, the idea so generally held and so 
fondly cherished^ that we shall recognize our 
friends in the future state. We have referred 
to the probability of such a degree of resem- 
blance between this body and the resurrection 
body, as that the latter can be called the same 
body. Now in this we have the ground-work 
for recognition. If nothing but the soul exists 
hereafter, how difficult would be this recog- 
nition ! The same difficulty would present 
itself if all bodies were alike in the resurrec- 
tion. But admitting the doctrine of Chapter 



LESSONS OF THE RESURRECTION. 199 

vii., this recognition becomes plausible and in- 
telligible. As then we weep at the grave, we 
should beguile our sadness by thinking of 
that happy state the body mouldering below 
will enter on the resurrection day. And w^hy 
be wrung w^ith distress as you .gaze upon the 
marbled features, if you can say, asleej) in 
Jesus ? Why agonize over the cold body ? It 
is asleep ! Is the slumbering of an infant an 
object from which you shrink ? Is it not 
rather a sweet sight? You place your hand 
upon the brow and you kiss the lips of the 
sleeper. Why then draw^ back and not touch 
that cold flesh ? Why hesitate to kiss those 
lips which part no more with love's accents ? 
No ! they cannot respond. And yet imprint 
upon them love's ow^n sign, in the exercise of 
Christian faith, that those lips, which now 
you press in an agony of grief, shall open and 
call your name as you come out of your 
grave. Thus exalted faith may recognize in 
the pallid corpse a sweet sight — only asleep 
in Jesus ! 

Blessed sleep, from which none ever wake to 
weep ! And as you would not disturb the 
infant's heavy slumber, so you could not in 



200 EESUEEECTION OF THE DEAD. 

all your longings, say^ " Lazarus^ come forth." 
And why be loth to lay that body in the 
grave ? Does the mother hesitate to put the 
infant out of her arms into its little bed, 
where it may repose more sweetly? And 
the grave is the bed — so grateful to myriads of 
Zion's foot-sore pilgrims, where the body shall 
slumber on until the day of the Lord Jesus. 
'' As death makes inroads upon the believ- 
er's circle, as those who love our Lord are one 
after another taken away from his earthly fel- 
lowship^ still he may console himself with the 
hopes of the resurrection. He may say, let 
my friends fall around- me — let me receive 
their last sigh, and close their dying eyes — let 
me follow to the grave the sweetest solace of 
my life ; she who was my joy in sorrow, my 
star in darkness ; w^ho watched around my 
sick bed ; whose kindness took from lan- 
guishing its discouragement, and from anguish 
its keeness ; she who walked life's vale with 
me, hand in hand, she must go down to the 
grave in silence ! hut Lazarus ^ my friend j 
slceiieth. If I believe^ I shall see the salvation 
of God:''' 

^ Spencer's Sacramental Discourses. 



LESSONS OF THE RESURRECTION. 201 

Finally, the doctrine of the resurrection is 
calculated to produce resignation to death. It is 
at the close of Paul's elaborate argument on 
the resurrection, and when his heart was 
warmed by the contemplation of it, that his 
emotions broke forth in the memorable words, 
^' So when this corruptible shall have put on 
incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on 
immortality, then shall be brought to pass the 
saying that is written, '' Death is swallowed up 
in victory. O death, where is thy sting? 
grave J where is thy victory ?" 

'' How perfect is the triumph of our re- 
ligion! There is something awful, dreadful, 
in the dissolution of the body. Death is the 
dread of nature. Every beast fears it. Every 
bird shrinks from it. They utter no other 
cry so piercing as their death-cry. The fear 
of death seems to awaken in all living crea- 
tures the most tormenting distress. And 
when I think of my own dissolution, when I 
say to myself, these limbs shall stiffen, this 
tongue shall falter, the blood shall curdle in 
my veins, I seem to be contemplating the 
most distressing subject. My coffin! my 
funeral ! my grave ! I shudder at them. But 



202 KESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

Jesus Christ flings glory across the gloom. 
He \Yore grave-clothes, and hallowed the 
dress of the dead. He went down into the 
sepulchre, and softened and sanctified the 
bed of the believer. The believer, then, sin- 
ner as he is, may glory in Jesus Christ. He 
may say to himself, let this body die — let it 
be hidden in darkness and moulder into dust ; 
it belongs to Jesus Christ ; he has made it 
the tcmiih of the Holy Ghost; true, he will 
take down this tabernacle^ but he will build 
it again ; i?i my flesh shall I see God."* 

The hope of the immortality of the soul, 
and of its eternal bliss through Jesus Christ, 
causes the believer to exclaim ^' for me to de- 
part and be with Christ is far better." And 
the hope of the immortality of the resurrec- 
tion-body, and of its abiding happiness, 
should remove the last vestige of his unwil- 
lingness to depart. It should sever the last 
tie that binds him to earth. '^The grave is 
not to him the gloomy abode, the permanent 
resting-place of the bod}'- ; it is a place of 
rest for a little time, grateful, like a bed of 



*S: 



Spencer's Sacramental Discourses. 



LESSONS OF THE RESURRECTIOX. 203 

down to a wearied frame, where he in ay lie 
down and repose after the fatigues of the day, 
and gently wait for the morning. He has 
nothing to fear in the dying pang, the gloom, 
the chill, the sweat of death. He has noth- 
ing to fear in the darkness, the silence, the 
coldness, the corruption of the grave." t 
What though worms destroy the body, and 
the damps of the tomb gather over his flesh ! 
These are no more to that body than are the 
fogs of night, which shall disappear v/hen 
the sun of righteousness breaks out in the 
heavens at the trumpet's sound. This is the 
road to immortality, '' Unless a grain of wheat 
die, it abideth alone." And though that flesh 
crumbles, it springs up again to incorruption 
and immortality. All the accessories and 
equipments of the grave are merely the un- 
sightly implements for moulding a corrupti- 
ble form into an incorruptible. For so pol- 
luted has the flesh, even of the saint, become 
by sin, that no cleansing process could purify 
the tainted constitution. So complete is the 
ruin, that it admits of no repair. The body 

t Barnes. 



204 RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

must be reduced to its primitive element, and 
undergo the, purifying process of the grave. 

We do not dread the darkness of the night 
when our senses are locked in repose^ and 
why should we feel alarmed to fall asleep in 
Jesus? He will watch our dust with a more 
wakeful eye than the fond mother keeps 
vigils over her sleeping babe. As then^ with 
the joy of God in his heart, the fiaithful in 
Christ expires, whispering, " Into thy hands I 
commit my spirit, for thou hast redeemed me, 

Lord God of truth ;" he can also add, " As 
for me, I will behold thy face in rigbteousness ; 

1 shall be satisfied when I awaJce with thy like- 



ness.^ ^ 



a Thrill my mortal frame with gladness, 
Fear not though thy vigor wane, 

Give not any place to sadness, 
Christ shall raise the dead again. 

When shall sound the trump of doom, 

Piercing, rending, every tomb. 

" Smile, then, that cold dark grave scorning, 
Smile at death and hell together ; 
Through the free air of the morning. 

To your Saviour ye shall gather ; 
All infirmity and woe, 
'Neath your feet then lying low. 



LESSONS OF THE EESURRECTION. 205 

** Only raise your souls above 

Pleasures in whicli earth delighteth ; 

Give your hearts to him in love, 
To whom death so soon uniteth; 

Thither oft in spirit flee, 

Where ye would forever be." 



CHAPTER IX. 



CARE OF THE DEAD — CEMETERIES. 

I am a stranger and a Bojonrner with you ; give me a possession ot 
a burying place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight. 
— Genesis, xxiii. 4. 

Still hallowed be this spot, where lies 
Each dear loved one in earth's embrace I 

Our God their treasured dust doth prize, 
Man should protect their resting-place. 

A corpse is not a carcass to be dragged 
hither and thither ruthlessly. It retains much 
of the sacredness attached to the human per- 
son. Indeed, the lifeless body of any animal 
cannot be regarded with indifference by the 
serious minded. A tender heart cannot look 
upon that which once breathed, moved, and 
sprang with the alacrity of life without a 
feeling of sadness. We cannot regard the car- 
cass of a beast with the unconcern that we 
behold the same animal chiseled in statuary. 
An Eastern fable represents our Lord as once 
passing, with his disciples, where a dead dog 
lay. and while most of them laughed at an 
206 



CARE OF THE DEAD — CEMETERIES. 207 

object SO mean, and some repulsed it with 
disdain, he tenderly stooped to it and said, as 
he touched it, '' Ah, but its teeth, pearls are 
not whiter !" 

When the murderer has done his bloody 
work, must not the prostrate form which lies 
at his feet, and which but just now ceased to 
beg for life, often break open the fountains of 
his soul, and flood his heart with emotions 
that might well sink him to despair? No 
w^onder that the murdered corpse, wdth its 
ghastly wounds and pallor, and expiring gaze, 
haunts his vision in broad day amid the busy 
scenes of life, and floats before his eyes like 
an ignis fatmis, through all the sleepless hours 
of night. The ghost of the murdered Banquo 
is a part of a tragedy, which has been re- 
enacted many a time in the life of the man 
who has imbrued his hands in human blood. 
The very form that was smitten down is 
painted on the eye. 

The missionary Mofiat relates the follow- 
ing : " I visited a chief who lived some hun- 
dreds of miles from our mission station in 
Lattakee. He had made himself famous by 
his conquests, and had become the terror of 



208 EESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

the country. In a conversation which I 
had with this man of war and of blood, I took 
occasion to speak of the resurrection. The 
chief understood me. 'What,' he cried out, 
quite beside himself, ' what are those w^ords 
of yours about the dead ? Shall the dead 
arise V Yes, all the dead will arise. ' Shall 
my father arise V Yes, your father will rise. 
' Shall all who have fallen on the field of 
battle come to life ?' Yes. ' And all who 
have been devoured by bears, tigers, hyenas 
and crocodiles, shall they all live again?' 
Yes, they will appear in the judgment. • And 
those whose corpses have fallen upon the sand 
of the desert, and have wasted away, and 
their ashes scattered to the winds, shall they 
too rise ?' This question he put with an air 
of triumph, as if he had stopped my mouth 
with it. Yes, I answered, not one of them 
will be forgotten. The chieftain fixed his eyes 
upon me : ' My father,' said he, as he laid his 
hand upon my breast, ' I love you much ; 
your visit and your presence have made my 
heart as white as milk. The words of your 
mouth are as sweet as honey ; but what you 
say of a resurrection is too hard to be under- 



CARE OF THE DEAD — CEMETERIES. 209 

stood. I will not again hear it said that the 
dead will rise. The dead will not arise!' 
What, said I, can a man who has been so en- 
lightened, throw away his wisdom and turn 
aside from understanding? Tell me, my 
friend, why must I be silent and speak no 
more of the resurrection ? At this he raised 
his arm that w^as so mighty in battle, swung 
it to and fro as if about to hnrl a lance, and 
exclaimed : ' I have slain my thousands ; shall 
they arise?' " 

Throughout all time a sacredness has been 
associated with the human body. Man can- 
not shake it ofF^ even if he would. A Diog- 
enes might reply, when asked what shall be 
done with your body after death, " hang me 
upon a tree^ with my staff in my hand to 
scare away crows," but he has few sympa- 
thizers. There rather dwells in every breast 
the desire expressed in the Oriental benedic- 
tion — ^^May you die among your kindred^ and 
be laid with your fathers." In all countries 
the rites of sepulture have been regarded as 
a debt so sacred that those who neglected to 
perform them w^ere thought infamous. The 
Greeks and Romans called these rites by words 



210 KESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

— -justa^ roMijuo: — ^implying the inviolable ob- 
ligation which nature has laid upon the living 
to perform the obsequies of the dead. They 
v^^ere extremely solicitous about the interment 
of their deceased friends ; so that they v^ould 
purchase the body which had fallen into an 
enemy's hand in battle, and use the most 
strenuous efforts to rescue their kindred from 
an ignoble burial. For they believed that 
souls could not be admitted into the elysian 
fields until their obsequies had been per- 
formed ; and that if they did not obtain the 
rites of burial, they were excluded from the 
happy mansions for a hundred years. By the 
Mosaic Law the remains of malefactors and 
of the slain were to have an interment. Ven- 
geance was not to be wreaked on the lifeless 
flesh. 

Now all this was not the mere promptings 
of a love for one's species. There was con- 
nected with it the religious element. Man 
treated his dead with all this regard, because 
there yet lingered the half-recognized con- 
sciousness that the human body was more 
precious than the carcass of a brute ; not 
merely because a soul once was in it, but be- 



CARE OF THE DEAD CEMETERIES. 211 

cause that flesh was reserved for a future use. 
It is true the idea of a resurrection was not 
recognized in their respect for the dead. But 
we often act from great principles of human- 
ity and religion J when we are wholly igno- 
rant of the hidden source of that action. As 
corroborating this view, we find not only 
vastly more care taken of a corpse than of the 
carcass of a beast, but there was interwoven 
with funeral rites the ceremonies of religion. 
Among all nations burial services were and 
are consecrated by the pious acts of their 
faith, requiring the sacred offices of the 
priests. 

It will be a suitable conclusion to these 
chapters, in which the body of man has been 
under consideration, to inquire how man has 
been wont to treat the body of his fellow- 
mortal after death. This will lead us to pre- 
sent a brief account of the funeral rites of 
former times, and the places of burial. 

In the most ancient times the Eomans 
buried their dead. But the practice of burn- 
ing was early adopted from Asia, and both 
burning and burying continued to be practised 



212 EESURKECTION OP THE DEAD. 

more or less until the introduction of Christi- 
anity. Among the Jews bodies were always 
buried. In the case of persons of exalted 
rank there seems to have been a burning con- 
nected with the funeral. Such was the great 
burning made for king Asa. On these occa- 
sions the bed, furniture and vessels used by 
the deceased, were placed on the pyre. The 
grave-clothes were probably of the fashion 
worn in life. The body was swathed and 
fastened with bandages, the head being cov- 
ered separately. Previous to this, spices were 
applied to the corpse in the form of ointment, 
or they were inserted between the folds of the 
linen. Hence our Lord's remark, that Mary had 
anointed his body for the burial. A hundred 
pounds weight of myrrh and aloes were pur- 
chased by the women who went to the tomb 
on the morning of the resurrection. King 
Asa is said to have been laid in ^' a bed of 
spices." The closing the eyes, the kissing 
and the washing the corpse are customs com- 
mon to all nations. In the latter days of the 
Eoman Eepublic, and under the earlier Em- 
perors the corpse of a man of wealth was 
anointed with oil, and perfumed by the slaves 



CAKE OF THE DEAD — CEMETERIES. 213 

of the undertaker. > A coin was placed in his 
mouth to pay ferriage over the styx. The 
body, dreesed in the best robes the person had 
possessed while living, was placed in the ves- 
tibule of the house^ with its feet toward the 
door. If the deceased had received an hon- 
orary crown^ it was placed upon his head. 
The bier was often strewn with flowers^ and 
a branch of cypress was placed before the 
door. Among the Jews coffins were seldom 
used, since they buried mostly in caves, or 
rock-hewn sepulchres, around the sides of 
which niches were made large enough to hold 
the body. Hence, in the burial and resurrec- 
tion of our Lord, no mention is found of a 
coffin. But among the ancient Greeks and Eo- 
mans coffins were made of baked clay, or 
earthenware. And in those cases in which 
the body was burned, the bones and ashes 
were placed in urns, which were preserved in 
tombs, built commonly on the roadside with- 
out the city gates. 

The custom among the Egyptians of em- 
balming is of great antiquity. In the time of 
Jacob, it was well known and universal in 
that nation. Various reasons have been as- 



214 RESUERECTION OF THE DEAD. 

cribed for the practice, but none of these as 
yet has stood the test of research, A vast 
amount of pains and money was expended on 
bodies thus prepared. A mummy of the first 
class had a thousand yards of linen wrapped 
about it. It was encased in a beautiful sar- 
cophagus^ which was often decorated with 
gold-leaf. It is a remarkable fact that few 
mummies of children have been discovered^ 
although the custom of embalming those of 
earliest years was practised. 

Burning the body was very general by 
Greeks and Eomans, and still prevails among 
several nations of Asia and the East Indies. 
In the interior of Asia the custom is of very 
ancient date, and has been of long continu- 
ance. It seems to have originated out of 
friendship to the deceased, whose ashes were 
preserved, as we cherish a lock of hair. 
Kings were burnt in cloth made of asbestos- 
stone, that their ashes might be preserved pure 
from mixture with the ashes of the fuel, or of 
other substances on the pyre. Burning w^as 
forbidden to infants who died before teething. 
Such were entombed, unburnt, in the ground 



CAEE OF THE DEAD CEMETERIES. 215 

in a particular spot, set apart for this purpose. 
Burning was also denied to suicides. 

Among the Eomans the funeral took place 
at night. The procession was headed by mu- 
sicians ; these were followed by hired mourn- 
ers. After these came the freedmen of the 
deceased, who sometimes amounted to a con- 
siderable number, wearing the cap of liberty. 
Immediately preceding the corpse went per- 
sons bearing waxen masks representing the an- 
cestry of the deceased. The family followed 
the corpse ; the men, contrary to the usual 
custom, with their heads covered ; the women 
with their heads bare, their hair disheveled, 
and often beating their breasts^ and uttering 
piercing cries. If the rank of the deceased 
warranted, the procession passed through the 
forum, and an oration was there pronounced 
over the body. 

A marked feature of Oriental mourning is 
w^hat may be called its studied publicity ^ and 
the careful observance of the prescribed cere- 
monies. Job arose and rent his mantle, and 
shaved his head^ and fell down upon the 
ground on ashes. In like manner his friends 
rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust 



216 EESUREECTION OF THE DEAD. 

upon their heads, and sat down with him on 
the ground seven days and seven nights, and 
'' none spake a word unto him." Among the 
particular forms of mourning observed and men- 
tioned in the Bible^ were rending the clothes, 
and dressing in sackcloth ; ashes, dust^ or earth 
w^ere sprinkled on the person ; black or dark 
colored clothes were w^orn ; ornaments were 
removed ; the head was shaved ; there was 
fasting, or abstinence in meat and drink. 
When we turn to the heathen we find similar 
manifestations of grief. Among the ancient 
Egyptians, when a man of any account died, 
the females among his relatives smeared their 
faces and heads with mud, and ran through the 
streets with loud lamentations^ and striking 
their breasts. The men beat their bared breasts 
in like manner. The bereaved Greek tore his 
hair and flesh, and beat the breast to the sound 
of the lute. Many of the same customs yet 
prevail where Christianity has not come to 
moderate grief and subdue these violent dem- 
onstrations of sorrow by the hope of a blessed 
immortality for those who die in Jesus. 
Among the Arabs^ the men are silent in grief, 
but the women scream, tear their hair, hands 



CARE OF THE DEAD — CEMETEEIES. 217 

and face, and throw earth on their heads. In 
Persia, mourning lasts forty days ; for eight 
days a fast is observed, and visits are paid by 
friends to the bereaved relatives. On the 
ninth day the men go to the bath^ shave the 
head and beard and return visits ; but lamen- 
tations continue for two or three times a week 
until the fortieth day. Mourners are hired at 
the obsequies of Hindoos and Mahommedans^ 
as in former times. This art of mourning is 
only to be acquired by long practice. These 
professional mourners are often hired to visit 
the grave on the third, seventh, and fortieth 
days, where they say prayers at the tomb, 
strew flowers, and distribute food to the poor. 

We come now to the place of burial. The 
desire to possess a burial-ground for the 
family, where kindred may repose side by 
side, even as they live under the same roof, 
early shows itself in Biblical history. And 
it is not a little remarkable that the first men- 
tion of such a consecrated spot for the safe-keep- 
ing of the departed, is in connection with the 
Father of the Faithful. As though Abraham's 
strong faith, as he bowed in tears over the lifeless 
10 



218 RESURRECTIO:^" OF THE DEAD. 

form of the wife of his youth — her who had 
been the companion of his wanderings, and 
the sharer in his hopes and fears — even then 
"looked for a city w^hich hath foundations^ 
whose builder and maker is God." The scene 
presented in Genesis is pathetically sublime. 
That distinguished chieftain, honored for his 
virtues, and powerful in the magnitude of his 
possessions, stands before the sons of Heth, 
who owned the soil, and with choking utter- 
ance says : ^^I am a stranger and a sojourner 
with you ; give me a possession of aburying- 
place with you, that I may bury my dead out 
of my sight," With generous response they 
replied : " Thou art a mighty prince among 
us ; in the choice of our sepulchres bury thy 
dead; none of us shall withhold from thee 
his sepulchre^ but that thou mayest bury thy 
dead." This large-hearted proposal, how- 
ever, Abraham could not accept. He did not 
wish to mingle his dead with the remains of 
others. He and his were a chosen seed. They 
were to be distinct from all other people, and 
that distinction was already begun. He could 
not, therefore, permit this distinction to be ob- 
literated at death. The result was that Abra- 



CARE OF THE DEAD — CEMETERIES. 219 

ham purchased a field containing a cave ; and 
this was the only land^ in fee-simple, that he 
or his descendants held for fom' hundred years. 
In that cave he and his immediate posterity 
were laid 3,700 years ago, and there they are 
believed to rest until this day. Xo one in 
modern times has been permitted to enter that 
cave. As a special favor the present Prince 
of Wales and two of his suite were allowed to 
see the entrance of the cave^ but not to enter. 
With jealous care the Turk watches the mouth 
of this cave — God's keeper of the dust of the 
Patriarchs. 

Palestine abounds in caves like that of 
Machpelah. And these natural cavities, en- 
larged and adapted by excavation, or else arti- 
ficial imitations of them, became the standard 
type of sepulchre. These, when the owners' 
means permitted^ were commonly prepared in 
advance, as in the case of Joseph of Arima- 
thea. They w^ere erected in gardens, by road- 
sides, or even adjoining the dwelling-house. 
Joshua was buried in his own inheritance in 
Timnath-Serah ; and Samuel in his own house^ 
at Ramah — which probably means in the gar- 



220 EESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

den attached to the house. Joab, too, was 
buried in his own house in the wilderness. 

David established a burying-place for his 
dynasty in Hebron. In this one half of the 
twenty-two Kings who succeeded him in 
Jerusalem were buried. Of them it is merely 
stated that they were buried in " the sepul- 
chre of their fathers." In this sepulchre^ 
however, were placed only those who so 
reigned as to secure the approbation of the 
people, and the commendation of God. And 
it is recorded as the highest honor which could 
be conferred on the good priest Jehoiada, that 
" they buried him in the City of David among 
the kings, because he had done good in Israel, 
both toward God and toward ^ His House.' ""^ 

This Westminister Abbey of Judea, so far 
as we can judge, was originally a natural cave 
in the hill of Zion, and in immediate proxim- 
ity to the Temple. This was improved by 
art, and, like many rock-hewn tombs, con- 
sisted of one large room at the entrance, with 
which other rooms were connected by narrow 
passages. Around the sides of these rooms, 

* 2 Chron. 24. 16. 



CAEE OF THE DEAD — CEMETEEIES. 221 

in most instances, receptacles or holes were 
hewn, about large enough to contain a corpse. 
The head of a family, in preparing such a 
sepulchre^ commonly provided space for more 
than one generation^ and thus were formed 
galleries^ or connected rooms of sepulchre. 
It was in one of these, probably abandoned 
and without an owner, that the demoniac of 
Gadara was housed. They were large enough 
to furnish comfortable shelter in that mild 
climate. 

The Jews, although singularly free from the 
pomps and vanities of funeral magnificence, 
were, at all stages of their independent exist- 
ence, an eminently burying people. From 
the time of their entrance into the Holy 
Land^ until their expulsion by the Eomans^ 
they attached the greatest importance to the 
possession of an undisturbed resting-place for 
the bodies of their dead ; and in all ages they 
have manifested the most marked respect, if 
not veneration, for the sepulchres of their an- 
cestors. It was deemed a misfortune, or in- 
dignity, to be excluded from the family sep- 
ulchre. Hence so great anxiety was shown, 
and so great efforts made to reclaim the re- 



222 RESUERECTION OF THE DEAD. 

mains of Saul and his sons from the Philis- 
tines, that they might be placed in his father's 
tomb. It was also a token of profound feel- 
ing towards a person not of one's family^ to 
wish to be buried with him^ or to give him a 
place in one's own sepulchre. Thus Ruth ex- 
hibited her affection for her mother- in-law in 
the most emphatic manner, when she said : 
" Where thou diest I will die, and there will 
I be buried." It was also a noble tribute of 
high esteem, which Joseph of Arimathea 
manifested toward the despised Nazarene^ 
when he took the body of our Lord to his 
own tomb. He incurred, thereby, the hatred 
and malice of the Sanhedrim to an extent we 
little reckon. It w^as a manly stand for Jesus 
Christy which we do not sufficiently appre- 
ciate. Few, however, could indulge in the 
expense of a rock-hewn tomb. Taking all 
that are known, and all that are likely to be 
discovered^ there are not a thousand of these 
around Jerusalem, which city, in the days of 
its prosperity, must have had a population of 
forty thousand. The greater portion of the 
people therefore, then as now^ must have been 
content with graves dug in the earth. These 



CARE OF THE DEAD — CEMETERIES. 223 

rock-cut sepulchres were peculiar to Palestine, 
and arose out of the mountainous character 
of the country, vdiich abounded in caves, as 
do the mountainous regions of Kentucky. 
The usual places of interments among the 
Greeks and Romans were suburbs of the 
cities and fields, but especially the wayside. 
We have a few instances of persons buried in 
cities, but it was a favor allowed only to those 
of remarkable merit. The Greeks, before they 
adopted the Phrygian method of burning the 
dead, had their koimatarion, or sleeping- 
place. And at Eome the Appian Way was 
lined for miles wdth sepulchres and urns. In 
Babylon and Egypt there were immense 
buriai-placeSj which are still attested by the 
ruins and the mummies which have been dis- 
covered. Said an Arab to a French savant^ 
pointing to an immense plain of fifty square 
leagues, '^ all this is mummy." 

Burying in churches was not allowed for 
aie first three centuries. It was also prohib- 
ited severely by the Christian Emperors for 
many ages afterwards. Yet Christians early 
introduced the custom of buildins: their 
churches over the graves of martyrs, and then 



224 RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD 

of leaving a space around the church for in- 
terments. After a time the kings and emper- 
ors were allowed a burial in the church porch. 
In the sixth century the people began to be 
admitted into the church-yards, and some 
princes, founders and bishops into the church 
itself. The custom has prevailed all over 
Christendom of having a barying-ground 
around the church. 

Among Christians the body has generally 
been laid with the head toward the west. 
Whether it arose from tradition, that such was 
the disposition of our Savior's body in Joseph's 
sepulchre^ as some assert, or, according to 
others^ from a fanciful inference from Christ's 
words — " For as the lightning cometh out of 
the east and shineth even unto the west, so 
shall also the coming of the Son of Man be," 
— and, therefore, lying in the last sleep with 
the head toward the west would be the most 
convenient position for the awakening body 
to rise up and catch the first glimpse of the 
Son of Man, — cannot be determined. But it 
is a custom generally observed, although there 
are many violations of it. In some grave- 
yards the bodies lie all ways. So that quaint 



CARE OF THE DEAD CEMETERIES. 225 

Sir Thomas Browne^ who wrote on this sub- 
ject nearly two hundred years ago^ might well 
say : " This body, whose head is towards the 
north, was a Persian ; that, whose head is 
towards the east, was a Phoenicean ; whereto 
pertaineth that third^ which looketh towards 
neither cardinal point, were difficult in the 
conjecture ; but this fourth, whose head is 
towards the west, is, past controversy, a 
Christian, to whatsoever nation he pertaineth."* 
In cities and towns, as population increased 
and interments became more numerous, burial- 
grounds around churches became entirely too 
small for the necessities of the public. Under 
such circumstances the accumulation of 
bodies within a limited space led at each new 
burial to scenes shocking to humanity^ while 
the disengagement of gases resulting from 
their decomposition^ proved deleterious to the 
general health. In some of the poorer dis- 
tricts of London the soil w^as raised two, 
three, and even four feet by the interment. 
And within thirty years, in a space of 318 
acres, 1^500,000 bodies had been interred. 

*^ Bibliotheca Sacra, 1849. 
10* 



226 RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

Thus in that city^ and in others, the necessity 
became imperative to establish large public 
cemeteries placed beyond municipal limits, 
Paris was the first to set this example. In 
1804 a tract of land was purchased by the 
city authorities for a burial-place. It was 
laid out in walks^ avenues and alleys. It was 
adorned with trees^ shrubs and flowers. The 
name Pere la Chaise was given to it, from a 
Jesuit father, who once owned the tract in 
part. At a later period three other cemeter- 
ies were established about the city. This 
was the beginning of those rural and subur- 
ban cemeteries which have sprung up in the 
vicinity of almost every town. These seclud- 
ed resting-places for the dead, where they 
may repose until the resurrection day, are rap- 
idly growing in public favor. And most justly 
too. They commend themselves to our Chris- 
tian faith, and to our filial respect for our an- 
cestors. That was a natural feeling of the 
heart which prompted Jacob to exact of his 
son Joseph the promise that he should be laid 
in the family sepulchre at Machpelah. And 
the more home-life is cherished, the stronger 
does this sentiment show itself. We have our 



CAKE OF THE DEAD — CEMETERIES. 227 

families gathered around us in the great events 
of life. We seek to have them with us at the 
v^edding festival, at the annual gathering, and 
at the death-bed. It is therefore the consum- 
mation and perpetuation of this same emo- 
tion, to lie in the midst of our kindred ; so 
that when we rise at the resurrection, we may- 
find ourselves again surrounded by our be- 
loved. 

" Room for the dead ! they cannot rest 
Where busy feet and careless tread 
May trample o'er the silent breast, 
May echo o'er the fallen head. 

** We build them here a pleasant shrine, 
From noise and tumult far removed ! 
Where the golden glow of day's decline, 
Shall gild their graves — the lost and loved. 

" The summer air shall breathe of flowers. 
That deck each mound and lowly bed, 
"Wild blossoms, fresh^rom forest bowers, 
Be scattered o'er the silent dead ! 

" Here shall they sleep — the young, the old, 
The brave of mein, the fair of form ; 
And childhood, with its locks of gold, 
Shall find a covert from the storm." 

Impressed with the reality and full import 



228 RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

of the resurrection of the dead, with what 
importance and interest is the cemetery in- 
vested ! It is the Beth-haim — the house of 
the living. " The grave is mine house." 
How truthful these words of Job ! Yes ! the 
grave is our houses while our dwellings of 
wood and brick are only tents in which we 
lodge for a season. The grave is the house in 
which our bodies shall remain ages and ages^ 
we know not how long. Pilgrim on life's 
journey, think, when thou passest the city of 
the dead, there is the city where my travels 
shall end ! there is my Jiousej into w^hich my 
body shall enter when God comes for my soul ! 
That grave is my house, and not this habita- 
tion which I call my home, and which I gar- 
nish with the desirable things of earth. That 
narrow place is the house appointed for all the 
living. There the dead are housed for the res- 
urrection day. 

The cemetery is the Friedhof — "the court 
of jpeace.''^ No rude alarms, nor boisterous 
shouts invade those dwellings. Storms can- 
not enter them. They are impervious alike 
to cold and heat. It is a populous city, 
and yet, as in ash-covered Pompeii, you hear 



CARE OF THE DEAD— CEMETERIES. 229 

no sound as you tread its streets. No face is 
seen in the window, nor voice of weeping or 
joy breaks upon the ear. Though it teem 
with children, their merry laugh is never 
heard. Not an angry word breaks the awful 
peace which the King of Terrors has imposed. 
Life-long enemies and bitterest foes repose 
side by side. The warrior, whose ear could 
catch even in sleep the approach of battle^ 
and who w^as prompt to buckle on the armor, 
no longer is stirred by the mightiest conflicts. 

* The wicked there from troubling cease, 
Their passions rage no more ; 
And there the weary pilgrim rests 
From all the toils he bore. 

There rest the prisoners, now released 

From slavery's sad abode ; 
No more they hear the oppressor's voice, 

Or dread the tyrant's rod. 

" There servants, masters, poor and rich, 
Partake the same repose ; 
And there, in peace, the ashes mix 
Of those who once were foes." 

Tread lightly ! On such a soil who can tell 
what lies beneath ! The careless foot presses 
now on the maiden's breast, and now on the 



230 RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD. 

infant's form. How much sorrow do these 
graves represent ! What bitter tears have wet 
this sod again and again ! How many hearts 
have been rent here ! It is a Bochim^ a place 
of weepers, as well as a sleeping-place. It is 
a memorial of sorrows and griefs the most 
agonizing. It is the pillory of eternal justice, 
where every culprit sooner or later is bound. 
And by these mounds is printed Grod's irrevo- 
cable decree, " the wages of sin is death." 

Sacred ground ! There slumber in these clods 
of the valley redeemed souls, " their bodies 
still united to Christ." The believer's grave, 
however lowly, is hallowed ground. He may 
have been diseased in every organ, and a beg- 
gar like Lazarus, but while angels bore the 
soul to Abraham's bosom, God takes care ol 
his dust. And though a worm and no man 
was laid in that grave, yet, as from the chry- 
salis' tomb, shall come hence a beauteous form, 
incorruptible, immortal, even like unto Christ's 
glorious body. 



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